#legendary guitar players

[allthedesiredusernamesaretaken]

... sound of rebellion ...

Jimmie Vaughan with the 1951 Fender Broadcaster/Nocaster 'Jimbo' that he gave to his brother Stevie Ray Vaughan which would be his first guitar.

[dinosaurwithablog]

This is a fantastic photo of Jimi Hendrix in the military!! He looks great in his uniform. I love a man in a uniform and I adore Jimi so I think this picture is very, very, very hot 🔥

Jimi Hendrix in the U.S. Army, 1961-1962

(English / Español / Italiano)

Letter home, October 1961

Dear Dad:

I have just received your letter and I am very happy to see that you are well and that you and Leon are together. It has taken me by surprise and I am very happy, because I know that you are, or should I say were, very lonely there. That's how I feel when I start thinking about you and the rest - and Betty. Tell Leon to do what he's supposed to do, because, as you used to tell me, life takes its toll on you. I'm also very happy that you have a TV, and I know you're ‘working hard’ at fixing up the house. Keep it up and I'll do my best to survive the Airborne to make our name stand tall. I'm going to try my hardest and I'm going to try my hardest and I'm going to make it so that the whole Hendrix family has the right to wear the Howling Eagle insignia of the United States Army Airborne Forces (smile)! Don't worry, next time you see me, I'll be wearing the badge of pride. I hope so.

To Dad Hendrix, from your son, with love. James

P. D: Please send me the guitar as soon as you can, I really need it now, it's still at Betty's.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Carta a casa, octubre de 1961

Querido papá:

Acabo de recibir tu carta y estoy muy contento de ver que estás bien y que Leon y tú estáis juntos. Me ha pillado por sorpresa y estoy muy feliz, porque sé que estás, o debería decir estabas, muy solo allí. Así es como me siento cuando empiezo a pensar en ti y en el resto –y en Betty–. Dile a Leon que haga lo que se supone que tiene que hacer, porque, como solías decirme, la vida te acaba pasando factura. También estoy muy contento de que tengas una televisión, y ya sé que te estás «currando» lo de arreglar la casa. Sigue así y yo haré todo lo posible por sobrevivir a las Fuerzas Aerotransportadas para dejar nuestro nombre bien alto. Voy a esforzarme mucho y a intentarlo con todas mis fuerzas. ¡Lo conseguiré para que toda la familia Hendrix tenga derecho a llevar la insignia del Águila Aulladora de las Fuerzas Aerotransportadas del Ejército de los Estados Unidos (sonrisa)! Tranquilo, la próxima vez que me veas, luciré la insignia del orgullo. Eso espero.

A papá Hendrix, de tu hijo, con amor. James

P. D: Por favor, envíame la guitarra en cuanto puedas, ahora me hace mucha falta, sigue en casa de Betty.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lettera a casa, ottobre 1961

Caro papà:

Ho appena ricevuto la tua lettera e sono molto felice di vedere che stai bene e che tu e Leon siete insieme. Mi ha colto di sorpresa e sono molto felice, perché so che siete, o dovrei dire eravate, molto soli lì. È così che mi sento quando inizio a pensare a te e agli altri - e a Betty. Di' a Leon di fare quello che deve fare, perché, come mi dicevi sempre, la vita ti prende il suo tributo. Sono anche molto felice che tu abbia una TV e so che stai “lavorando sodo” per sistemare la casa. Continua così e io farò del mio meglio per sopravvivere all'Aeronautica e far sì che il nostro nome sia alto. Ce la metterò tutta e farò in modo che tutta la famiglia Hendrix abbia il diritto di indossare le insegne dell'Aquila urlante delle Forze aviotrasportate dell'esercito degli Stati Uniti (sorriso)! Non preoccuparti, la prossima volta che mi vedrai, indosserò il distintivo dell'orgoglio. Lo spero.

A papà Hendrix, da tuo figlio, con amore. James

P. D: Per favore, mandami la chitarra il prima possibile, ne ho davvero bisogno ora, è ancora da Betty.

Source: Pasión por el Jazz y Blues.

[tavolgisvist]

I was always interested in finding out what have happens on the photo. What gave them the idea of depict Paul's funeral: why the funeral, why Paul? Well…I have an answer, I suppose

More legendary than most, however, were a band briefly signed to Brian, the Big Three. Other musicians on the scene seemed to regard this band with awe. They were the original power trio, real sonic bruisers who’d built themselves the biggest amplifiers - nicknamed Coffins - that anyone had ever seen.

(Liverpool - Wondrous Place by Paul Du Noyer, 2002)

Epstein made his way to the Cavern club to see the group perform at a lunchtime session on November 9th. He wrote later that he had never seen anything like The Beatles on any stage. <…> "I loved their ad libs and I was fascinated by this, to me, new music with its pounding bass beat and its vast, engulfing sound." <…> The "pounding" bass that Epstein described was due in part to a new addition to The Beatles' equipment line-up. In the early 1960s there was really no such thing as a proper bass amplifier. Most bass players would use the most powerful guitar amplifier that they could get their hands on. But these were not designed for bass guitar, and did not provide the deep, throbbing bass tones that bass guitarists wanted. As The Beatles evolved their sound and Best perfected his "atomic beat" the group were searching for a stronger and more solid bass sound.

The band considered by many to be the loudest and most aggressive in Liverpool was The Big Three. They bad started out as Cass & The Cassanovas, a four-piece until leader and frontman Brian Casser left during the beginning of 1961. The remaining members stayed together to form The Big Three: Johnny Gustafson on bass, guitarist Adrian Barber, and Liverpool's loudest drummer, Johnny Hutchinson, on the skins.

Barber says that when they became a trio there was an instant problem: he and Gustafson weren't loud enough to project over Hutchinson's drumming. Even the relatively punchy Selmer Truvoice amp was not enough. Barber, however, had an interest in electronics from his days in the merchant navy. <…> Barber went out and bought a book about loudspeakers produced by G A Briggs, who owned the British Wharfedale speaker company, and inside he found construction details for various sizes of cabinets. "I decided on one, and Denis Kealing said he could get me a 15-inch speaker," recalls Barber. "I built a set-up for the bass guitar and for the vocal, in a cabinet about five feet tall by about 18 inches square. <…> I used that and mounted it in a metal ammunitions case, so we could carry it around without killing it. Johnny Gustafson used it as his bass amp, and it was very successful. "When we carried it we bad to lower it on its side, because it was long and skinny. The first time we took it down to the Cavern, we struggled down the tiny stairs there. As we carried this black-painted thing across the room it looked just like a coffin - and that's how it got its name: the Coffin. Now, the Cavern was the underground basement of a warehouse, with three vaulted brick-built archways. Over the years water had seeped down and brought calcium deposits with it, which had settled in the ceiling bricks. So when Johnny plucked that first bass note it was like a shower of snow corning down. People went, 'Wow look at that … and listen to that.' So we were really impressed, and I got ambitious at that point." <…> Other bands began to notice the relative sophistication of The Big Three's amplification, especially the bass gear. "Liverpool wasn't a competitive scene, before it got commercial," explains Barber. '"All the bands co-operated with one another and backed each other up. It was a cool scene, and I started to build these things for other people. Paul McCartney asked me to make him a Coffin. It had a single 15-inch speaker in a reflex-ported cabinet, with two chrome handles and wheels on the side."

McCartney started to use a Barber Coffin speaker cabinet during the late part of 1961. <…> McCartney himself recalls, "Adrian made me a great bass amp that he called the Coffin. And, man! Suddenly that was a total other world. That was bass as we know it now. It was like reggae bass: it was just too right there. It was great live." Pete Best too remembers the Coffin. "Neil Aspinall and I used to carry it. Every couple of shows there'd be a flight of stairs which you had to carry this thing up, and it was then we'd wonder why he couldn't have got something smaller. We'd have sweat streaming off us. But the beauty of it was, with all the laughing and joking aside, it did produce a great sound. The first time Paul plugged it in and used it, we just said my god, this is incredible. It added to The Beatles sound."

(Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments from Stage to Studio Hardcover by Andy Babiuk, 2010)

So, I guess, Paul is lying on his bass amp that they called the Coffin - and it's the reason of the pantomime on the photo.

[theunderestimator-2]

Hector Penalosa as captured by Melanie Nissen back in 1977 while performing at Larchmont Hall, Los Angeles, with The Zeros, a band of high school teenagers from Chula Vista, CA, who helped create the first wave of punk rock in Southern California (photo included in the photographer's 2002 "Hard and Fast " book with photos previously published in Slash Magazine as well as some never seen before).

cheunderground.site/ : "The Zeros, often referred to affectionately as the “Mexican Ramones,” cannot only justifiably lay claim to being San Diego’s first “punk” rock group but also can brag about being one of the first punk groups in the US. In a brief but brilliant career highlighted by some classic recordings as well as shows with the Clash and Devo, the Zeros played the first big punk shows in both Los Angeles and in San Diego as early as 1977, when they were still high-school students (…) at a time when greater San Diego was both indifferent to and unimpressed by counterculture movements of any kind. Zeros guitarist and lead vocalist Javier Escovedo hails from a musical family… His brother Alejandro founded San Francisco punk band the Nuns, whose pinnacle was opening for the Sex Pistols in their legendary final concert in 1978 at the Winterland, and, was the family member with the most influence upon his musical tastes. Zeros guitarist Robert Lopez and his cousin, Zeros drummer Baba Chenelle grew up together listening to music and learning to play the guitar and drums, respectively. Baba and Hector met in PE class at Chula Vista Junior High School on April 4, 1975, the Monday after KISS made its first appearance on Burt Sugarman’s “Midnight Special.” “I told this kid I had seen this band on TV with a bunch of makeup and platforms,” Hector remembers. “Baba said, ‘Yeah, man, they’re cool. I have three of their records, so I’ll bring ‘em tomorrow, and you can check ‘em out.’ Baba turned me on to a lot of cool music like Aerosmith, the Modern Lovers and the Velvets, and we became friends,” says Hector. Hector decided to switch to bass so that he could eliminate his competition. He began teaching himself to play bass using three albums as guides: “The New York Dolls”; the Dolls’ “Too Much, Too Soon”; and John Lennon’s “Rock and Roll.” During this time, Javier and Robert, who were students at Chula Vista High School, were playing in a band called the Main Street Brats, covering Standells, Seeds, and Velvet Underground songs, alongside Javier’s originals like “Main Street Brat,” “Siamese Tease,” “Wimp” and “Don’t Push Me Around.” They recruited Baba to be the group’s drummer, and later that year, when they needed a bass player, Hector was invited to audition at Javier’s house in Chula Vista. “I didn’t hear from them for a long time afterwards,” Hector remembers. “I finally asked Baba about it, and he told me that they weren’t sure because they thought if I joined there would be too many Mexicans in the band! They were looking for a blonde guy.” The band had now become the Zeros, a nod to a line by Lester Bangs Javier had read in Creem magazine: “I don’t wanna be a hero, I just wanna be a zero.” Founding members of the band Robert Lopez & Hector Penalosa reunited to form The Zeros ’77 and will be performing on a mini So-Sal tour on 17 Sept. in LA, 21 Sept. in San Diego & 22 Sept. in Long Beach. (from 'Getting Nowhere Fas't, a book on the '76-'86 San Diego scene by Ray Brandes of The Tale-Tell Hearts)

(via)

[menlove]

i’m new to the whole beatles rpf (i am an rpf veteran though i wrote 75k words of michael jackson fanfiction in middle school and 15k of queen freshman year of hs 😐) so what are like the tenets of beatles rpf. what’s the need to know.

YELLS that's so fucking valid of you I can't even lie

and HMMMM okay I can only speak for mclennon bc I observe the other ships from a distance but don't chomp at the bit about it but here's some things that come up A Lot in fics

john & paul met on july 6, 1957 at a church garden party. john played "come go with me" & got the words wrong while paul watched from the audience and Fell In Love. after, they officially met. paul took john's guitar, tuned it, then flipped it upside down (he's left handed) and played 20 flight rock perfectly. john was smitten and the rest was history

oh shit edit I forgot! john used to climb the drainpipe into pauls room. VITAL info that comes up so often

they had group wanking sessions (beat the meatles lmfao) & they'd call out the names of various female celebrities during it (john would apparently call out male names as a joke to throw people off which 💀)

STUUUUUU. we love stu, paul hates stu. stuart sutcliffe was a boy john met at art college & he became His Boy Bestie instead of paul for a while which had paul FUMING. john & stuart lived together for a while & in mclennon lore john was in love with him (& I do also think that lmao). which brings us to

HAMBURG. in 1960 the beatles went to hamburg & stayed several months in the world's dingiest room. they shared bunk beds & stayed up all night playing music & took pills (prellies) to stay the fuck awake. stuart went with as their bassist & paul hated him soooo bad so bad. in part bc stu did not take the band very seriously & was not good at playing and paul is a notorious perfectionist. fun hamburg facts! here stuart met astrid, his future fiance. and she took them to a gay bar lmao. also, at one point, in the most heinous and toxic move, john walked in on paul fucking a girl and lost it. he cut up her clothes with a pair of scissors and then started stabbing the wardrobe 💀 normal behavior. the whole thing was just drugs and sex and music. great fic setting always.

eventually they got back. george was deported first bc he was underage & then paul and the drummer lit a fucking condom on fire where they were staying and got deported too. john stayed an extra bit & when he got back didn't tell anyone. in the meantime, stu stayed in germany w astrid and paul Got A Job at his dad's insistence bc they all thought the band was over when john didn't show back up. but eventually he did. and made paul pick between the job and the band...... or rather, his dad and john. and paul picked john.

Some Months Later john took paul to paris for his 21st birthday. 200000000000 fics about this. all legendary all gay.

stu died </3

there's barely any fics of the touring days which is tragic I think there should be 60000. I guess the only thing that comes up semi often from that era is that they played lovers in a play, pyramus & thisbe, and paul named two kittens pyramus & thisbe. and gave pyramus (the character he played) to john. not joking at all.

next biggest Canon McLennon Event everyone brings up is lsd. george & john got into lsd first & ringo tried it as well. paul was extremely reluctant to and this caused a bit of a rift between him and john. eventually though, they did trip together and the first night is McLennon Fic Lore. john accidentally dropped acid in the studio (smth he avoided) & was out of it. almost jumped off the roof. paul took him back to his home (cavendish) & took lsd with him. there's a lot to this trip I can't even summarize but it was gay and there's lots of fics abt this incident

was Not the first time paul took lsd though which brings us to the Next Big Tropey Players: tara browne and robert fraser. both are men paul hung around in 1967 and there's looots of fics where he was gay w them and john is Seething

india! I'm not an india truther so I don't really get into these but the fandom at large thinks Something Happened during the beatles' 1968 trip to india. this usually takes the form of john confessing to paul and them fucking and then paul turning him down. background lore for many many breakup fics

and that's the stuff that tends to come up Most Often. there's so much lore I could probably write an entire novel & a lot of it gets referenced but these are some of the biggest players lmao

[rhapsodynew]

#classic rock news

#new music

A book with memorable graphics of legendary bands. It is being prepared for publication.

Only 500 copies – such a limited edition will be released the book “Rock Visions: Rock 'N' Roll Graphics From The Print Age”, which is a collection of memorable artifacts of twelve famous rock bands and performers of our time. In this list: Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Elton John, BAD COMPANY, JOURNEY, KISS, LED ZEPPELIN, PINK FLOYD, QUEEN, THE ROLLING STONES, STEVE MILLER BAND and THE WHO.

The book presents their graphic legacy – from original tour programs, backstage passes and concert tickets to T-shirts, posters and record covers.

🌧 It's time for November Rain. November will delight us with a lot of good music. Courtesy of UCR News

November 1st

• The Cure – Songs of a Lost World ❤️

• Elvis Costello – King of America and Other Realms (6CD box)

• T. Rex – Bolan Boogie: The Best of T. Rex (2CDs or 2LPs)

• Todd Rundgren – Arena

Warren Haynes [Allman Brothers Band] – Million Voices Whisper

• Weezer – Weezer (The Blue Album): 30th Anniversary Edition (3CD set) ❤️

November 8

• Beach Boys – The Beach Boys' Christmas Album

• Hawkwind – Doremi Fasol Latido (multiple format reissue, including 3CD/2Blu-ray deluxe box)

• Neil Young – On the Beach

• Paul Carrack [Squeeze / Mike + the Mechanics] – How Long Has This Been Going On?

• Pete Townshend [The Who] and Rachel Fuller – The Seeker ❤️

• Rick Wakeman – Yessonata

• Steve Perry [Journey] – The Season 3 ❤️

• Talking Heads, Talking Heads: 77 ( 3CD/Blu-ray или 4LP

• Widespread Panic – Hailbound Queen

15th of November

• Black Keys – Ohio Players (flying double act)

• Bryan Adams – Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 2024 (3CD/1 bLue-ray box)

• Burton Cummings [Guess Who] – Some good moments

• Don Henley – Creating the Perfect Beast (original 40th Anniversary vinyl edition)

• George Harrison – Life in the Material World (original edition of the 50th anniversary vinyl record)

• Iron Maiden – The Mighty Slave (original edition of the vinyl record with zotrope for the 40th anniversary)

John Cale [Velvet Underground] – "The Academy is in Danger"; Paris, 1919: Luxury Remastered Edition (VP)

• Linkin Park – From Scratch ❤

November 22nd

• Allman Brothers Band – Final concert on 10/28/14 (3 CD sets) ❤️

• The Beatles – American albums of 1964 in mono format

• Kan–Kan lives in Kiel, 1977

Chicago, I live at 55

• Don Henley – I Can't Stand Still; Cass County (Multi-voice editions)

• The Doors – The Doors 1967-1971 (box of 6£) ❤️

• Judas Priest – Rock and Roll: the anniversary edition for the 50th anniversary (in English) ❤️

• Motley Crue – Dr. Feel Good: Deluxe edition for the 35th anniversary of the group (set of 3 CD) ❤️

• Neil Young – On the Beach (opposite)

• "Smashing Pumpkins" – Aghori Mhori Mei (VP)

• Marilyn Manson – "One Murder under God" ❤️

U2 – How to Disassemble an Atomic Bomb: 20th Anniversary reissue (CD; limited edition super deluxe 5CD or 8LP box; cassette); How to Disassemble an atomic Bomb: Re-assembly edition (extended digital edition)

• Van Zant [Lynyrd Skynyrd/.38 Special] – Always look up ❤

November 29th

• Eric Clapton – Crossroads Guitar Festival 2023 (4CD/2 bLue-ray set) ❤️

• John Wetton – Concentus: The John Wetton Live Collection, Volume 1 (10CD box)

• Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes – Concert at the Capitol Theater, Passaic, New Jersey - December 30, 1978 (series of 3 albums, including yellow marbled edition; Sovenoman Zandt)

• Status Quo - The Path to Glory (reissue in summary, including a limited section of "Autographed Vinyl Records")

• War - CD Collection 1977-1994 (set of 4 CDs)

• Wilco – Hot Sun Cool Shroud ("Cold Sun")

🤘 New U2 track

The song "Happiness" was written during the session for the Irish rockers' 2004 album "How to Disassemble an atomic Bomb" and was included in the new album "How to assemble an atomic Bomb again" along with the Wound inspired songs "Rural Mile" and "Your Photo (X + W)"

The upcoming album will include new, previously unreleased songs found in the session archives of the original album. It will be released on November 22 in the room with the main version of "How to disassemble an atomic Bomb"

Tool Group announces the first ever all-inclusive "Live In The Sand" festival featuring Primus, Mastodon and others

Festification and Tool are pleased to announce the holding of the first ever "Tool Live In The Sand" festival at the luxurious five-star Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and Royalton Resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, from March 7-9, 2025. "Tool Live In The Sand" will bring Tool fans from all over the world to the island

At this unique event, which will be headlined by Tool. There will be two nights featuring some of the most iconic and influential rock bands in the world, including Primus, Mastodon, Eagles Of Death Metal and Coheed And Cambria. The stars also include King's X, Fishbone, Wheel, Cky, Moonwalker, and longtime Tool collaborators Alex Gray and Allison Gray join as special guests.

Scorpions announce a concert in honor of the band's 60th anniversary in their hometown with Judas Priest

The legends of German hard rock Scorpions will celebrate their 60th anniversary on stage with a big concert in their hometown

The "60th Anniversary — Homecoming" event will take place on July 5, 2025 at the Heinz von Heiden Arena in Hanover and will include performances by special guests, including Judas Priest

Recall that as part of the celebration of their 60th anniversary, the legends of German rock will also visit Las Vegas

THE NEW CONCERT ALBUM TEARS FOR FEARS

Songs for a Nervous Planet is a live album that includes four new studio tracks, as well as live recordings by Tears For Fears during the tour and in their best moments. The album includes live versions of such hits as "Shout", "Head Over Heels", "Everybody Wants To Rule The World", "Mad World" and others. Covering all periods of the band's existence from The Hurting to The Tipping Point and beyond, this album will take you on an incomparable sonic journey, which is the Tears For Fears concert and their career to date

[weneverlearn]

Aaron Lange, Peter Laughner, and the Terminal Town of Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland-based artist, Aaron Lange, tackles his first graphic novel, Ain't It Fun -- a deep dive into the oily depths of the Rust Belt's most influential music town, it's most mythological misfit, it's oft-forgotten artistic and political streaks, and beyond...

Aaron Lange and his book, 2023 (Photo by Jake Kelly)

--------------------------------------

There’s a recurring line in Aaron Lange’s remarkable new graphic novel, Ain’t It Fun (Stone Church Press, 2023), that states, “Say the words out loud. The River isn’t real.” The river Lange was speaking of is the Cuyahoga, that infamously flammable mass of muck that dumps out into Lake Erie.

Peter Laughner (the ostensible topic of Lange’s book) was an amazing artist who probably could’ve ditched the banks of the Cuyahoga for more amenably artistic areas back in his early 1970s heyday. Aside from his frequent pilgrimages to the burgeoning NYC Lower East Side scene (where he nearly joined Television) and a quickly ditched attempt to live in California though, he mostly stuck around northeast Ohio.

While desperately trying to find his sound and a workable band, Laughner smelted a post-hippie, pre-punk amoebic folk rock, and formed the influential embryonic punk band, Rocket from the Tombs, which later morphed into Pere Ubu. All of which – lumped up with other rust-belted oddballs like electric eels, Mirrors, DEVO, the Numbers Band, Chi-Pig, Tin Huey, Rubber City Rebels, and more – essentially helped formed the “proto-punk” template.

Laughner was also a rock writer of some regional renown, and contributed numerous amphetamine-fueled articles to regional mags like The Scene and Creem -- mostly concerning where Rock'n'Roll was going, colored as he was by the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, David Bowie, and Roxy Music playing in Cleveland a bunch of times around his formative years.

Sadly, in June 1977, Laughner died of acute pancreatitis at age 24. Aside from the first two seminal Pere Ubu 7-inch singles, the rest of Laughner’s recorded output was just one very limited self-released EP and, posthumously, a great double-LP comp of demo and live tracks, Take the Guitar Player for a Ride (1993, Tim Kerr Records). A surprisingly large batch of unreleased lost demos, radio shows, and live tapes appeared on the beautiful and essential box set, Peter Laughner (Smog Veil Records, 2019), that brought Laughner’s legend just a few blocks outside of Fringeville, as it received universally great reviews….

The Dead Boys became the most well-known act of that mid-70s Cleveland scene, though that only happened once they high-tailed it to NYC. Aside from DEVO, Chrissie Hynde, and the Waitresses (all of whom did their own versions of high-tailing it), nearly every other act in that fertile Cle-Akron proto-punk vortex soon dissipated, eventually getting the cult treatment at best.

Cleveland is indeed right there with NYC and London as punk ground zero, but Americans tend to equate buyable products as proof of import, so shockingly, the Pagans and The Styrenes just aren’t the household name they should be.

Decades of tape-trading stories, sub-indie label limited releases, and fanzine debates kept the mythology of those acts barely breathing underneath the end of the milennium’s increasingly loud R'n'R death knell. And as that mythology slowly grew, the fans and even the musicians of the scene itself still wonder what it all meant.     

Which, as you dig deeper into Ain’t It Fun, becomes the theme not just about the legendary rocker ghost of Peter Laughner, but of Cleveland itself. Ala Greil Marcus’ classic “hidden history” tome, Lipstick Traces, Lange interweaves Laughner’s self-immolating attempts at Beatnik-art-punk transcendence with a very detailed history of Cleveland, with its insane anti-legends and foot-shooting civic development.

Like much of the dank, rusted, and mysterious edges of the one-time “Sixth City,” the Cuyahoga has been cleaned up since, though I still wouldn’t suggest slurping up a swallow if you’re hanging on the banks of the Flats. I grew up in Cleveland and visit as often as I can because it’s an awesome place, no matter what they tell you. Or maybe, because of what they tell you.

If you are keen to swim down through the muck and mire of Cleveland’s charms, you don’t just get used to it, you like it. As for the “Cleveland” that the City Fathers have always tried so vainly to hype, us hopelessly romantic proto-punk fanatics say to those who would erase Cleveland’s fucked-up past and replace it with that weird fake greenspace underneath the Terminal Tower: “The City isn’t real.”

-------------------------------------

Give us a quick bio.

Born in Cleveland, 1981. We moved to the west side suburbs when I was six. My parents didn’t listen to much music, and I don’t have older siblings. So I didn’t really listen to music at all until I was in high school, and I didn’t listen to any of the grunge or ‘90s stuff that was popular. I got real into the Beatles when I was in ninth grade, and at some point I got the Velvet Underground’s first album from the library because I saw Andy Warhol’s name on the cover. I didn’t know anything about them, so that was a real shock. I probably first heard Iggy Pop via the Trainspotting soundtrack, and pretty soon after I started getting into punk and generally more obscure stuff. Now I listen to more electronic stuff, ambient stuff. I also like most anything that falls under the broad “post-punk” umbrella. I really hate “rama-lama ding-dong” rock and roll.

What came first – music or drawing interest?

Drawing. I was always drawing… I’ve been a semi-regular contributor to Mineshaft for many years, which is a small zine/journal that features a lot of underground comix related stuff, but also has a beatnik vibe and includes poetry and writing. I’ve done the odd thing here and there for other zines, but I don’t really fit in anywhere.

Don’t really fit it – I feel that phrase describes a lot of the best / more influential Ohio musicians / bands. Did you feel that kind of feeling about Peter as you researched and wrote the book?

Peter was well liked, and he knew a vast array of people. If anything, he fit in in too many situations. He was spread thin.

When you lived in Philly, did you get a sense of any kind of similar proto-punk scene / era in that town? I sometimes, perhaps jingoistically, think this particular kind of music is almost exclusively confined to the Rust Belt.

I lived in Philly for nearly 11 years. As far as the old scene there, they had Pure Hell. But back then, anybody who really wanted to do something like that would just move to NYC.

So, is there a moment in time that started you on a path towards wanting to dig into Cleveland’s proto-punk past like this?

It was just something I had a vague interest in, going back to when I first heard Pere Ubu. And then later learning about the electric eels, and starting to get a feeling that Cleveland had a lot more to offer than just the Dead Boys. The Rocket from the Tombs reunion got things going, and that’s when I first started to hear Laughner’s name. A few years later, a friend sent me a burned CD of the Take the Guitar Player for a Ride collection, and I started to get more interested in Peter specifically.

Despite any first wave punk fan’s excitement about a Laughner bio, this book is moreso a history of Cleveland, and trying to connect those odd underground, counterculture, or mythological connections that the Chamber of Commerce tends to ignor as the town’s import. Was there a moment where you realized this book needed to go a little wider than only telling the tales of Laughner and the bands of that era? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

Very early on I realized that none of this would make sense or have any true meaning without the appropriate context. The activities of the early Cle punk scene need to be viewed in relation to what was going on in the city. I think this is just as true with NYC or London – these were very specific contexts, all tangled up in politics, crime, rent, television, and also the specifics of the more hippie-ish local countercultures that preceded each region. You’ve got Bowie and Warhol and all that, but in Cleveland you’ve also got Ghoulardi and d.a. levy. Mix that up with deindustrialization and a picture starts to form.

So when did you decide on doing this book? You’ve mentioned this was your first attempt at doing a full graphic novel – and boy, you went epic on it!

I did a short version of Peter’s story back when I was living in Philadelphia. But upon completing that version – which I now think of as a sketch – it became clear that there was a lot more to say and to investigate. I spent about a year just thinking about it, forming contacts with some people, and tracking down various reference materials like records, zines, books, etc. Then my wife got a new job at Cleveland State University, so we left Philly. Once I landed back in Cleveland I started working on the book in earnest.

Page from Ain't It Fun -- all book images courtesy of the author.

By any chance was Greil Marcus’ book, Lipstick Traces (1989), an inspiration, as far as the “hidden history” factor, the trying to connect seemingly unconnected and lost historical footnotes into a path towards the culture’s future?

Yes. I read Lipstick Traces when I was around 19 or 20, and I’d never seen anything like it before. It really blew my mind, all the stuff about the Situationists and Dadaists and all that. Later on, I read Nick Tosches’ Dean Martin biography, Dino, and that was another mind blower. Another major influence is Iain Sinclair.

Ah Dino, another Ohio native. So, Laughner’s one-time partner, Charlotte Pressler’s book is mentioned, and I’ve seen it referenced and talked about for years – any inside word on if/when she might have that published?

Charlotte never wrote a book, though she did co-edit a book that collected the work of local poets. As far as her own writing, she’s done all manner of essays and poetry, and probably some academic writing that I’m not familiar with. As far as her completing “Those Were Different Times”— which was intended as a total of three essays— I’ve got some thoughts on that, but it’s not really my place to comment on it.

Pressler sounds like a very serious person in your book, as you say, she was kind of older than her years. But how was she to talk to?

Charlotte is serious, but she’s not dour. She’s got a sense of humor and she’s very curious about the world, always looking to learn new things. She’s an intellectual, and has a wide array of interests. We get along, we’re friends.

The fact that the town’s namesake, Moses Cleveland, left soon after his “discovery” and never came back – that’s like a template for how people envision a town like Cleveland: nice place to grow up, but you want to get out as soon as you’re legal. Even the musicians of the area might’ve agreed with that sentiment, even if many never left.  Do you think that has changed?

I’m glad I left Cleveland, but I’m also glad I came back. First off, my family is here. Second, the cost of living is still reasonable. I don’t know how people live in New York. I never have any money. I’d make more money if I had a full-time job at McDonald’s. That’s not a joke, or me being self-deprecating. How do artists live in New York? How do they afford rent and 20 dollar packs of cigarettes? I’m just totally confused by the basic mechanics of this. So yeah, I’m in Cleveland. It’s not great, but what are my options? I can’t just go to Paris and fuck around like a bohemian. I would if I could.

In Ain't It Fun, you reveal that one of the seminal Cleveland scene dives, Pirate's Cove, was once a Rockerfeller warehouse  – these kind of enlightening, almost comically perfect metaphors pop up every few pages. Not unlike the mythology that can sometimes arise in musician fandom, I wonder if these are metaphors we can mine, or just an obvious facts that the town drifted down from a center of industry to relative poverty.

“Metaphor” might be at too much of a remove. These facts, these landmarks — they create a complex of semiotics, a map, a framework. The city talks through its symbols and its landscape. If you submit to it and listen, it will tell you secrets. There is nothing metaphorical about this.

Is it a sign of privilege to look on destitution as inspiration? I’m guessing the sick drunks at Pirate’s Cove in 1975 weren’t thinking they were living in a rusty Paris of the ‘30s. Though I will say a thing I really loved about your book was that, for all its yearning and historical weaving, you still stick to facts and don’t seem to over-mythologize or put any gauze on the smog, like “Isn’t that so cool, man.” You capture the quiet and damp desperation of that era and Laughner’s milieu.

Poverty, decline, decay, entropy – these things are real. By aestheticizing them we are able to gain some control over them. And once you have control, you have the power to change things. This is not “slumming.” “Privilege” has nothing to do with it.

Page from Ain't It Fun

Do you know why the Terminal Tower (once the second tallest building in the world when it opened in 1928) was named that? It seems somewhat fatalistic, given the usual futurist positivism of the deco design era.

Terminal as in train terminal. It really pisses me off that there was once a time where you could go there and catch a train to Chicago or New York. It’s infuriating how this country dismantled its rail systems. And the Terminal Tower isn’t deco, but I think it is often confused with that style just by virtue of not being a gigantic rectangle. In that sense it does have more in common with a deco structure like the Chrysler building. Honestly, if you are looking for deco you might find more notable examples in Akron than you would Cleveland.

I notice a kind of – and bear with my lesser abilities to describe illustrative art – swirly style in your work that kind of aligns with art deco curves, maybe some Gustav Klimt…? In general, who were some illustrative inspirations for you early on?

That “swirly” style you describe is art nouveau. Deco came after that, and is more angular and clean. Additionally, a lot of underground comix guys were also poster artists, and there was often a nouveau influence in that psychedelic work – so there’s a bit of a thread there. As far as Klimt, I came to him kinda late, but I love him now.

The music of many northeast Ohio bands of that era has been generally tagged as “industrial” (the pre-dance industrial style, of course), cranky like the machinery of the sputtering factories in the Flats, etc… My guess is maybe the musicians were already finding used R'n'R instruments in thrift stores by that time, which would add a kind of layer of revision, turning old things into new sounds. Did you hear about of any of that? Or were there enough music stores around town? I know DEVO was already taking used instruments and refitting them; or electric eels using sheet metal and such to bang on…

I’m not a musician, so I don’t know anything about gear or stuff like that. I do know that Allen Ravenstine made field recordings in the Flats, and utilized them via his synthesizer. Frankly, I wish more of the Northeast Ohio bands had taken cues from Ubu and early Devo, because an “industrial” subculture definitely could have formed, like it did in England and San Francisco. But that never really happened here.

That kind of music was pretty popular on college radio and in a few clubs in Cleveland, though not many original bands with that sound arrived, aside from Nine Inch Nails who quickly took his act elsewhere… So in the book you mention local newsman, Dick Fealger. My memories of him are as a curmudgeon whose shtick was getting a little old by the time I was seeing him on the news, or his later opinion columns. Kinda your classic “Hey you kids, get off my lawn” style. You rightly paint him as a somewhat prescient reporter of the odd in his earlier days, though. I once had to go to a friend’s mother’s funeral, and in the next room in the funeral home was Dick Feagler’s funeral. I always regret not sneaking over and taking a peak into it to see who was there.

I like Feagler in the same way that I liked Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes. These were people that my grandparents liked. So I suppose my appreciation for Feagler is half nostalgia, half irony. I like cranks, grumps, letter-writers, street prophets. I like black coffee, donuts, diners, and blue plate specials – that’s Feagler’s world, the old newspaper world. Get up at 6 am and put your pants on, that kinda thing.

Yeah, I still found Feagler kinda funny, but like Jane Scott, while respect was always there, by the later ‘80s/’90s, both were set into almost caricatures  who were kind of resting on their laurels. 

Yeah, I remember seeing Jane at some random Grog Shop show back in the ‘90s, and I was kinda impressed. But no, she was never really cool. Jane was pure Cleveland, her career couldn't have happened anywhere else.

I remember seeing her sit right next to a huge house amp at the old Variety Theater for the entire duration of a Dead Kennedys show, taking notes for her review. Pretty impressive given her age at that point.

You also make a point of carving out an important space for The Damnation of Adam Blessing, a band that seems to get forgotten when discussing Cleveland’s pre-punk band gaggle. I find that interesting because in a way, they are the template for the way many Ohio bands don’t fit into any exact genre, and so often people don’t “get” them, or they’re forgotten later.

Damnation worked as a good local example for that whole psychedelic thing. They were very ‘60s. While the James Gang on the other hand, was more ‘70s— the cracks were starting to show with the ‘70s bands, they were harder and less utopian. Damnation feels more “Woodstock,” so they were useful to me in that regard.

I must add – for years I thought it was pronounced Laugh-ner, as in to laugh, ha ha, not knowing the Gaelic roots. Once I learned I was pronouncing it wrong, I still wanted to pronounce it like laughing, as it seemed to fit so darkly correct with how his life went, and Cleveland musicians’ love of bad puns and cheap comedians and such… Of course when I learned that it was an “ethnic” name, it made it that much more Cleveland.

Yeah, everybody says his name wrong. I used to too, and had to really force myself to start saying it as Lochner. But everybody says Pere Ubu wrong as well – it’s Pear Ubu.

I hate any desecration of any artwork, but I always loved the blowing up The Thinker statue story, as it seemed such a powerful metaphor of the strength of art, and Cleveland itself – the fact that The Thinker himself still sits there, right on top of the sliced-up and sweeping shards from the blast. It’s still there, right? And isn’t it true that there are like three more “official” Thinker statues in the world?

Yeah, I don’t condone what happened, but it is kinda cool. As a kid, the mutilated Thinker had a strong effect on me — I couldn’t have put it into words at the time, but I think it gave me a sense of the weight of history. It’s almost like a post-war artifact in Europe, something that is scarred. And yes, it’s still there outside the museum. And it’s a cast. I think there might be five official ones, but I’d have to look that up. If you are ever in Philadelphia, swing by the Rodin museum and check out The Gates of Hell.

I have only become a bigger fan of Laughner’s as the years pass. But there is something to the critique that perhaps he never really found his singular sound; that he was copping bits from Lou Reed and Dylan, and couldn’t keep a band together to save his life. And there was supposedly a feeling among some in the NYC scene that he was a bit of a carpetbagger.

Everybody has their influences, so Peter wasn’t in any way unique in that sense. I know he has a reputation for doing a lot of cover songs — which is true — but he also wrote a lot of originals, and there are some damn good ones which are still unreleased. “Under the Volcano” is just one such unheard song which I mention in my book, but there are others. As far as finding his own singular sound, he probably came closest to that with Friction. That group borrowed heavily from Television and Richard Hell, but also drew upon Richard Thompson and Fairport Convention. And when you think about it, those were really unlikely influences to juxtapose, and it created something original. Frustratingly though, Friction never achieved their full potential, as Peter was already losing it.

Yeah, Friction is kind of way up there with the “What if” bands… It’s interesting that for all his legend as a proto-punk figure, perhaps Laughner’s signature songs – Sylvia Plath” and “Baudelaire” – were gorgeous acoustic numbers. Though of course those early Pere Ubu songs were proto-punk and post-punk templates, somehow...

I honestly don’t know what happened with Ubu, as it is pretty distinct from Peter’s other work. Thomas isn’t really a musician, so we can only give him so much credit with how that sound developed. I honestly don’t know. There just must have been some sort of alchemy between the various players, and Thomas understood it and was able to encourage and guide it in the projects that followed over the years.

Page from Ain't It Fun

You also didn’t really detail Pere Ubu’s initial breakup – was there just not much to say?

Yeah, I think I mentioned it, but no, I didn’t really get into it. Pere Ubu is kind of a story unto themselves. But it might be worth mentioning here that Home and Garden was an interesting project that came out of that Ubu breakup. And Thomas also did some solo albums, but I’m not as familiar with those.

Yeah, I saw Home and Garden a few times way back, good stuff. You’ve mentioned to me that there were some people that didn’t want to talk to you for the book; and that people were very protective of Peter’s legacy and/or their friendship with him. To what do you attribute that?

It has everything to do with Peter’s early death. Some people are very protective of how Peter is remembered. And I think some people weren’t exposed to Peter’s dark side, so when they hear those descriptions of him it strikes them as untrue. I think Peter showed different sides of himself to different people.

I kind of felt as I was reading that you might say more about Harvey Pekar, as not only is he an interesting figure, but the most famous graphic novelist from Ohio, and I assume an inspiration of your’s.

Pekar’s great. Especially the magazine-size issues he was doing in the late ‘70s up through the ‘80s. It was important to me to include him in the book. But Pekar was a jazz guy, and that’s a whole other story, a whole other tangled web.

So, Balloonfest! Hilarious. I almost forgot about that. But I do remember Ted Stepien owning the short-lived Cleveland professional softball team; and for a promotion, they dropped softballs off the Terminal Tower, and if you caught one you won $1,000 or something. Do you recall that? It’s one of my favorite fucked-up Cleveland stories. Balls smashed car roofs, and cops immediately told people to run away.

Yeah, I’m aware of that baseball stunt. I generally try and stay away from anything even remotely related to professional sports teams — it gets talked about more than enough elsewhere. Oddly, I am interested in athletes who work alone, like Olympic skiers. I’m attracted to that solitary focus, where the athlete isn’t competing against other teams or players, but more competing with the limits of the human body, competing with what the physical world will allow and permit, that whole Herzog trip. I’m also interested in the Olympic Village, as this artificial space that mutates and moves across time and across continents.

As far as Balloonfest, I still watch that footage all the time. I use it as a meditation device. I’ll put it on along with Metal Machine Music and go into a trance.

A few years ago, as I am sure you are well aware, noted British punk historian Jon Savage put together a Soul Jazz Records comp of Cleveland proto-punk called Extermination Nights in the Sixth City. I grew up in Cleveland, lived in Columbus for awhile, and I never heard it called “the Sixth City.” Have you? If so, what does it refer to?

Nobody calls it that anymore. It’s an old nickname back from when Cleveland was literally the sixth largest city in the country.

I’d guess Ain’t It Fun was a tiring feat to accomplish. But do you have another book in the works? And if someone wanted to option Peter’s story for a movie, would you sign on? I personally dread rock biopics. They’re almost universally bad.

Yeah, I’ve got an idea for another book, but it’s too early to talk about that. As far as biopics, they are almost always bad, rock or otherwise. Rock documentaries are often pretty lousy too. A recent and major exception would be Todd Haynes’ Velvet Underground documentary, which is just goddamn brilliant. A film about Peter in that vein would be great— but there’s just no footage to work from. He didn’t have Warhol or Factory people following him around with a camera. So unless somebody like Jim Jarmusch comes calling, I won’t be signing off on movie rights any time soon.

Unless there is more you’d like to say, thanks, and good luck with the book and future ventures!

Stone Church Press has a lot of projects planned for 2024 and beyond, and I encourage anyone reading this to support small publishers. There is a lot of very exciting stuff going on, but you have to work a little to find it. Amazon, algorithms, big corporate publishers — they’re like this endless blanket of concrete that smothers and suffocates. But flowers have a way of popping up between the cracks.

Aaron Lange, 2023 (Photo by Jake Kelly)

[bekolxeram]

10 people I'd like to get to know more

tagged by @gaybonesforivy @starstruckbyacomet and @verschlimmbesserung

Last song: Matar Al Sabah by Ferkat Al Ard. I fell in love with Issam Hajali's guitar forward solo album from the get go when Habibi Funk re-released it in 2019. I was properly transcended the first time I heard the last song of the above mentioned album re-arranged with a full orchestra: strings, brass, piano, the whole she-bang, on the 2022 re-released version of Oghneya by Ferkat Al Ard, of which Hajali was also a member, together with saxophonist Toufic Farroukh and oud/bouzouki player Elia Saba.

Oghneya is a wonderful blend of Lebanese folk, jazz and Bossa Nova, arranged by none other than the legendary Ziad Rahbani (yes, Fairuz's son), with lyrics based on the works of 3 major Palestinian poets of the 20th century. It's a personal top 10 of all time for me, I highly recommend it. I feel the itch to listen to it at least once every month.

Fave Color: Red, like the blood of those who fight for freedom

Last Book: I've been reading multiple at the same time (football/politics stuff) but the truth is, the last book I laid my eyes on is the Christian Bible, because I wanted to quote a passage for a silly joke.

Last Movie: Everything Everywhere All At Once, I was hard-selling it to someone, but then I decided to rewatch it, and now I'm the proud owner of 2 puffy eyes.

Last TV Show: Air Crash Investigation S25E01, you know me🤷🏻‍♀️ Haven't been hearing a lot about the Transair ditching off the coast of Maui in 2021, I'm curious.

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: Savory, spicy second. I agree with @gaybonesforivy that savory yoghurt is the superior form. I've been craving salty minty yoghurt drink every summer since someone introduced me to ayran.

Relationship Status: Single. Just no desire for a relationship at the moment.

Last thing I Googled: How to replace a blown electrical outlet. Yeah, I'm just gonna call an electrician.

Looking Forward to: The upcoming episode of Jet Lag: The Game: Hide and Seek Japan. Extremely fun game show for geography/public transport nerds. Wednesday is now my favorite day of the week because of it.

Current Obsession: Canned seafood! My family's from Macau, so southern Chinese + Portuguese colony past, we looooove tinned fish at least as much as the average Portuguese person. Sardines, tuna, mackerel are all classics, but recently I've been expanding my palette and trying more obscured canned seafood like mussels, oysters, octopus. I've been enjoying myself so far.

I feel like everyone and their cat has done this already, so considered yourself tagged if you come across this post and you want to do it.

[lovejustforaday]

2024 Year End List - #10

The Collective - Kim Gordon

Main Genres: Industrial Rock, Noise Rock, Industrial Hip Hop, Experimental Rock

A decent sampling of: Trap, No Wave, Witch House, Power Noise

Look, at this point it's no secret on this blog that I am a big Kim Gordon fan.

As a former vocalist and bass player with Sonic Youth, Gordon developed a reputation for being, well, not much of a "singer" in the traditional sense. Her style is more that of poetic recital, often sardonic while other times sincere.

As a lyricist, Gordon has a knack for vivid and avant-garde first-person storytelling, particularly excelling at writing poignant and bleak character studies that usually carry a subtext of feminist critique about how women are pressured and molded by a patriarchal society. She has a way of writing that is witty, sometimes deeply sad, and ultimately profoundly human. For examples of some of her greatest verse, look no further than the somber tribute of "Tunic (Song for Karen)" and the chilling nightmare of "Pacific Coast Highway".

Among those with real taste, Kim Gordon has solidified her legacy as one of the coolest figures in all of alt rock history. She's avant-garde, but down to earth and laidback even. She's penned some of the greatest lyrics in her medium, but she's very modest about her own talents as a musician, preferring to be understood as a visual artist first.

What's even more incredible is that Kim Gordon has shown no signs of slowing down with old age. The woman is 71 years old, and somehow she's still putting out music that is loud and rebellious, and challenging on a level that most of her younger contemporaries aren't capable of being.

Gordon has had mild flirtations with the world of hip hop throughout her career as a musician. In 1990, she sang along with the legendary Chuck D of Public Enemy on arguably Sonic Youth's most famous track "Kool Thing". In 1993, She featured as a guest vocalist that sang the refrain on Cypress Hill's "I Love You Mary Jane".

And then there was her 2019 debut solo record No Home Record, featuring the track "Paprika Pony" which caught more than a few long time fans and newbies off guard. Here's this woman in her 60s (at the time) trying her hand at a trap beat and making something genuinely fresh in the process. Wouldn't it be wild if she made an entire record like this? Ha! If only....definitely not foreshadowing.

So anyway, The Collective is a Kim Gordon industrial hip hop record, and no I'm not making that up. Gordon has taken everything she learned about making beautifully discordant guitar noise during her Sonic Youth years, combined it with the industrial sound art of her debut solo record, a characteristically witty but altogether more of stream-of-conscious approach to lyrics, and some genuinely fire hybrid beats courtesy of co-producer Justin Raisen, who deserves a lot of credit as well for making this record so twisted. The resulting sound is loose, dystopian, abstract, uncanny, and chaotic.

When I first heard about this project, I was instantly gushing over the idea. Kim fucking Gordon doing her noise rock thing over devious, twisted and fucked up trap beats? Mind you, she's not exactly rapping over these beats, so much as expressing her thoughts un-rhythmically with discordant moans. It is hip hop strictly in an instrumental sense.

Would this be anybody's cup of tea? Abso-fucking-lutely not, and I don't expect it attract a lot of huge fans of hip hop especially. Kim Gordon is definitely a curious outsider in this context, dipping her toes into a world that she has never belonged to, but always seemed fascinated by. In fact, I might describe the way that Gordon interacts with the medium of hip hop as being synonymous to the way an alien studying humans might interact with human pop culture in general. Regardless, the result is honestly quite refreshing to my ears.

The album opens with "BYE BYE", sampling an open car door alarm and featuring Kim reciting a list of travel items and belongings. It hearkens back to her previous record with its themes of materialism, artificiality, and impermanence. I often find myself looking around the room I'm in and noticing the sheer fucking magnitude of plastic things, and this song perfectly captures that kind of alienating, unsettling feeling of realizing your sense of place and self is tied to so many hyper-artificial objects. Beat goes hard too.

"I Don't Miss My Mind" is essentially about losing a sense of self. The track quivers and screeches with this really grating turbine sound that I personally really can't get enough of. If anything will make or break this album for you, it's probably this track, which appears relatively early in the track-listing.

If you're able to make it through that filter, you'll be rewarded with the aural orgasm of low-hum guitar drone and crunchy trap hi-hats that is "I'm A Man". This track is the most traditional Kim Gordon track in terms of lyricism - a comically offbeat, sobering and depressing portrait of the vengeful and wounded traditional male ego in a late stage capitalist society where becoming "the breadwinner" is an increasingly unattainable and unrealistic goal, and where women are increasingly distancing themselves from the cultural ideals of machismo. Gordon demonstrates eloquently (and very crassly) the fundamentally tragicomic and unfulfilling nature of the archaic male role that is pursuing financial success and sexual conquest to prove one's worth. No one else pulls off this kind of dark irony quite the way that she does.

The penultimate "The Believers" let's all hell break loose. The production takes the front seat here - just a downright nasty, menacing fucking contraption of malice. Makes me feel like I've broken out in a cold sweat and something ungodly is breathing down the back of my neck, stalking me. The lyrics are occult and manic. Completely bonkers track.

I do think there are the occasional moments lacking direction, and one or two filler tracks IMO toward the mid-section. And I'm usually the first one to defend Kim Gordon's vocals from the endless hoards of dude-bros who think every female vocalist ever has to sound "pretty" and conventional, but I must admit on those more filler-y tracks that her vocals can start to feel a little aimless.

Still, when this record is at its best, it fucking bites. The Collective is definitely one of if not the most forward-thinking rock record this year. It's also a very fitting album for a year where our painful awareness of bullshit like stable diffusion being shoved down our throats, the strengthening corporate oligarchy rule over the internet, and the collapse of many social programs having those of us on the left feeling more than a little unhinged.

And yeah, Kim's definitely still got it, and this project is solid proof. If you want to challenge yourself with a truly left-field and daring record that goes HARD at the gym (or during a mental spiral), I highly recommend this one.

Oh yeah and, free my man Luigi.

8/10

Highlights: "The Believers", "I'm A Man", "BYE BYE", "I Don't Miss My Mind", "Dream Dollar"

FOR FANS OF: Visions of Bodies Being Burned by clipping. Shaking The Habitual by The Knife

[accomplisheddoubt]

How I began an attempt on a Legendary Legacy

Generational Outline for Legendary Legacy Save

*Legendary Legacy: play a household for 100 generations or more.

Part 1: History Challenge

1. Time Period: The Stone Age 2.5 million B.C. - 600 B.C.

Achievements: Harvested Interest (harvest 50 wild plants), Cast Away (master fishing)

Goals: 

Have at least 5 children with 5 different partners. Never marry.

Reach level 10 Fishing.

2. Time Period: Early Civilization 600 B.C. - A.D. 476

Achievements: Smooth Talker (master charisma)

Goals: 

Reach level 10 Charisma.

Have 8 good friends and 3 despised Sims outside of the household between all Sims.

3. Time Period: The Middle Ages A.D. 476 - A.D. 1450

*Notes: 1450 = Black Death

4. Time Period: The Renaissance A.D. 1450 - A.D. 1750

*Notes: Minor Scarlet Fever outbreak

5. Time Period: Industrial Revolution 1764 - 1848

Goals: 

Reach level 10 Motor and Mental skills on the same Sim.

*Notes: Revolutionary War, 1793 Yellow fever, 1832-1866 Cholera

6. Time Period: The Great Frontier 1837 - 1880

*Notes: 1861-1865 Civil War, 1858 Scarlet Fever, Elementary school, HS $1,000

Part 2: Decades Challenge

7. Time Period: 1890s - Eve of the 20th Century

8. Time Period: 1900s - Edwardian Era

Careers: Doctor

Achievements: Patients Are A Virtue (reach lvl 10 Doctor career)

9. Time Period: 1910s - World War I & Women’s Suffrage

*Notes: WWI 1914-1918, 1916 Polio, 1918 H1N1 flu

10. Time Period: 1920s - Roaring 20’s & Prohibition

*Notes: HS free, female heirs, 1921-1925 Diphtheria

* Legacy Player: Play a household for 10 generations or more. * Legacy Leader: Have ten households in the world that have been played for ten generations or more.

11. Time Period: 1930s - The Great Depression

*Notes: (2 kid average)

12. Time Period: 1940s - World War II

*Notes: WWII 1939-1945 (2 kid average)

13. Time Period: 1950s - Red Scare & Korean War

Aspiration(s): Musical Genius

Careers: Stay-at-home parent, Musician

Achievements: Bow-Dacious (master violin), Ivory Tower (master piano), Are You Entertained? (reach lvl 10 entertainer career)

*Notes: Korean War 1950-1953, 1950 Polio, 1957 H2N2 flu (3 kid average)

14. Time Period: 1960s - Civil Rights, Sexual Revolution, & Counterculture

Careers: Conservationist (Environmental Manager)

*Notes: BC pills, Vietnam War, 1965 interracial marriages (4 kid average)

15. Time Period: 1970s - Feminism & Environmentalism

*Notes: Eco Lifestyle popular, Vietnam War continued (3 kid average)

16. Time Period: 1980s - The Yuppies

Aspiration(s): Master Mixologist, Friend of the World

Careers: Mixologist, Business Management

Achievements: I’m the Mix Master (mix 100 drinks), Beyond Repairs (max lvl Handiness), Mael-strum (max lvl guitar)

*Notes: 1981-1991 Measles, gerbils allowed (2 kid average)

17. Time Period: 1990s - Globalization

Careers: Journalist, freelance programmer

*Notes: cell phones, internet (2 kid average)

18. Time Period: 2000s - The New Millennium

Careers: Law (Private Attorney)

*Notes: Y2K, 2009 Swine flu, social bunny, voidcritters (2 kid average)

Awhile back, @berkiesims asked if I would provide a post on the way I played my legendary legacy save. For the above generations I followed the rules from both original challenges The History Challenge and The Decades Challenge. However, I added death percentages based on real life events and diseases during each time period. I searched the % of deaths for let's say the black death and would come up with a % it would affect my sims that reflected that. Then randomized who would die in my save file from said death. And paired it with this Historical Disease mod. Once generation 19 heir was a young adult, I saved them to my gallery and started a new save file with them to begin a lepacy play through utilizing James Turner's Pack Disabler Tool.

Part 3: Lepacy Challenge 

19. Base Game: Oasis Springs

Aspiration(s): Nerd Brain, Grilled Cheese

Careers: Astronaut (Space Ranger)

Achievements: 50-Mile-High Club (woohoo in rocketship), It’s Not Brain Surgery (master rocket science)

20. Outdoor Retreat: Willow Creek 

Traits: Loves Outdoors

Reward Traits: Great Storyteller, Stoves & Grills Master, Incredibly Friendly, Inspired Explorer

Aspiration(s): Outdoor Enthusiast, Angling Ace

Careers: live off the land selling collectibles/woodwork

Skills: Herbalism, Fishing, Handiness

Collections: Insects, Frogs, Unidentified fruit, Fish, Postcards

Achievements: Critter Catcher (collect all insects & fish), Nature’s Course (master herbalism), Tastes Like Burning (consume every toxic plant), No Longer Solitary (bring hermit back to society)

Goals: Create home furnishings through woodworking, Take camping trips with future child(ren), host a weenie roast

21. Get to Work: Oasis Springs

Aspiration(s): The Curator

Careers: Scientist

Collections: Geodes, Inventions, Serums, Elements, Crystals, Metals, Microscope Prints, Space Rocks, Aliens

Achievements: Carried Away (Be abducted 3 times), Down to Science (reach lvl 10 scientist), You-Reek-A (scientific breakthrough while showering)

22. Spa Day & Get Together: Windenburg 

Aspiration(s): Self-Care Specialist, Zen Guru, Inner Peace, Leader of the Pack

Traits: Squeamish, High Maintenance, Insider

Careers: Self-Employed Wellness Guru

Skills: Wellness

*Notes: Incorporate Luxury Party Stuff

This is where I originally lost interest in my Legendary Legacy attempt and reworked how I would continue. As I am currently on Generations 23/24. This will be adjusted as I have a more concrete outline to share.

[mattdeeryradio-blog]

As good as it Getz MAWS Blog #8

 As Good as it Getz

Mel Martin in his article Stan Getz Musings interviews legendary Philly born saxophonist Stan Getz, on how he gets his sound (Joffe, 2020). Stan Getz recalls that when he played with famed jazz clarinetist, Benny Goodman, when he was eighteen that his time with him partially shaped his sound (Joffe, 2020). I always enjoyed Getz’ playing, with his superb sense of phrasing and melodicism. I am a big fan of Benny Goodman, he, apart from Pete Fountain, is the reason why I picked up clarinet and got into jazz as a genre in the first place. I believe the same reason I enjoy Stan Getz, even though he is a saxophonist, is that Benny Goodman always has a good sense of phrasing and melodicism, and that, maybe not consciously, but in a subconscious sense, must have informed Getz’ sounds, musical styling, lines, etc. What I like about Getz’ playing versus other saxophone players, is his tone and playing are so “smooth”. Getz in the interview confirms this, by his admission, when playing, he tried to get the “reediness” out from his playing with more emphasis on “breath” (Joffe, 2020). What is fascinating is one revelation Getz states that I had no idea about his playing. Getz plays mostly by ear, rather than by studied formal training (Joffe, 2020). While I do enjoy technicians who can read and write music, I have noticed that some of my favorite players/writer’s of music simply played by ear, played what sounded “good” to them. I think a lot of Jazz gets bogged down by modes, scales, etc. I noticed that, while yes having an understanding of music theory and composition can help immensely with a musicians progress, and understanding of music, it also perhaps takes the sense of feel, of the human element of playing. The great guitar player Jimi Hendrix, who some debate was the greatest of all time, could not read or write music, but rather played by ear. Some of his solos, while they could be wailing and noisy at times, had a sense of yearning, sadness, excitement, and anger, something that I don’t think is captured by studied musicians all the time. The Beatles are the perfect example of musicians who played by ear/who did not know music theory. A lot of there songs, while one could say are perfectly melodic, as well as have great harmony, will suddenly switch to three or four different time signatures in one song. Anyone with a sense of music theory would say they are writing songs wrong. But it is exactly these strange sudden time signature changes that propel/give a certain magic to The Beatles music.

Mel Martin’s article Stan Getz Musings gives insight to the musical mind of Stan Getz, with Getz’ own words. It is a very rare thing to get inside the brain of these musician’s minds, on how they play, their influences, what informed their style, what their thoughts are on the music they play. It seems that Getz had a keen self-awareness about himself, about his strengths, likes dislikes, influences, musical heroes, and weaknesses within himself. This understanding of how a musician’s mind works, especially within the context of jazz music, will aid in the questions I might ponder, and ultimately ask Philadelphian jazz musicians. I think this article gives great insight on how to produce a thoughtful interview with an artist. If thoughtful, researched, and appropriate questions are asked, I have a feeling it will yield great results to the podcast about Philadelphian Jazz, or at least, an upcoming rising star in the Philly Jazz scene.  

For LinkedIn Learning I watched the course “Vocal Production for Voice-Overs and Podcasts” by Evan Sutton. I learned that according to Evan Sutton, using a dynamic microphone is the best type of microphone to use for voice-over/podcasting. Sutton specifically states that while a standard Shure 57, which is usually used for tracking guitars etc., can be used, that a Shure 7 would be the go-to mic for him when recording. Sutton states that when recording in a space, to have stuff to effect sound. If one does not have access to a vocal booth, one could use towels, or other sound dampening materials to effect room tone, and to limit reverberation. Sutton also mentions the importance of slating things and keeping reference to a timecode. I remember in Professor Zaylea’s class, Producing and Directing, that when my classmate and I were shooting our short film, we had to be cognizant of sound. We were fortunate to have one of our classmate’s friends, Rockwell Valentine, make sure that the sounds levels were good, that for each take a slate in the form of handclaps were used. For each take Rockwell would make sure that the levels were good in the zoom recorder. Rockwell also would shout at the start of recording the scene that the sound was taking place, and what take it was. The directors of the short film, Riley Flanagan and Robb Konczyk would also perform hand claps and state the scene and take for both audio and video as well. This helped for editing later, to not add confusion to the myriad of both video and audio footage we recorded during the shooting sessions.

                                                              Works Cited

Joffe, E. (2020, October). Stan Getz Musings - Joffe Woodwinds. Joffe Woodwinds. https://www.joffewoodwinds.com/articles/stan-getz-musings/

Sutton, E. (2022, March 7). DAW setup and parameters - Logic pro video tutorial | LinkedIn learning, formerly Lynda.com. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/learning/vocal-production-for-voice-overs-and-podcasts/daw-setup-and-parameters?autoSkip=true&resume=false

‌

[allthedesiredusernamesaretaken]

... sound of rebellion ...

Greeny is a 1959  Gibson Les Paul Standard, named after its first famous owner, Peter Green  in 1964-65. He used it during his time in John Mayall and Fleetwood Mac before selling it to Gary Moore  in the early 1970s. Moore used the guitar throughout his career, both as a solo artist and in bands. Due to financial troubles, he was forced to sell it in 2006, after which it passed through several private collectors and guitar dealers. In 2014, Greeny was acquired by Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, who has since used it both in the studio and during live performances.

Renembering Gary Moore who would be 72 today .... gone too soon

[jazzandother-blog]

Jaco Pastorius with Jimmy Page at The Lone Star Café, New York City 1985 (audio here)

Jaco Pastorius (bass, vocal, keyboard), Jimmy Page (lead guitar), Kenny Gwyn (guitar), Scott Brown (keyboard), Chris Slade (drums), Jerry Gonzalez (tp, perc) (audio here)

(English / Español)

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page recalled a jam session he had back in the '80s with the late Jaco Pastorius, the legendary jazz bassist known for his innovation and use of the fretless bass.

"On this day in 1985, I went to see Jaco Pastorius at The Lone Star Café in New York. ⠀⠀

"Jaco was accompanied by a drummer he'd accessed from The Village Voice Musician's Column. Needless to say, this drummer from the small ads was having a bit of a problem keeping up with the powerhouse Jaco Pastorius, who was illustrating the complete textbook to the various approaches of electric bass.

"Jaco invited me up and I had a jam with him but more importantly, Chris Slade, The Firm's drummer also got up to jam, relegating the current drummer to a table in the club.

"After about four numbers, I returned to our table to witness a tremendous synergy and understanding of Jaco's playing from Chris who remained for the rest of the set. That night I got to understand what an experienced and passionate drummer Chris Slade could be.

"And also what a monster of a player Jaco Pastorius was."

Jaco died on September 21, 1987, at the age of 35 after being severely beaten up by a club owner in Florida.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jimmy Page, guitarrista de Led Zeppelin, recuerda una jam session que tuvo en los años 80 con Jaco Pastorius, el legendario bajista de jazz conocido por su innovación y su uso del bajo sin trastes.

"Tal día como hoy de 1985, fui a ver a Jaco Pastorius al Lone Star Café de Nueva York. ⠀⠀

"Jaco estaba acompañado por un batería al que había accedido desde The Village Voice Musician's Column. Huelga decir que este batería de los anuncios pequeños tenía algunos problemas para seguir el ritmo del poderoso Jaco Pastorius, que estaba ilustrando el libro de texto completo a los diversos enfoques del bajo eléctrico.

"Jaco me invitó a subir y tuve una jam con él, pero lo más importante es que Chris Slade, el batería de The Firm también subió a hacer una jam, relegando al batería actual a una mesa del club.

"Después de unos cuatro números, volví a nuestra mesa para presenciar una tremenda sinergia y comprensión de la forma de tocar de Jaco por parte de Chris, que se quedó durante el resto del set. Aquella noche comprendí lo experimentado y apasionado que podía llegar a ser el batería Chris Slade.

"Y también lo monstruoso que era Jaco Pastorius".

Jaco murió el 21 de septiembre de 1987, a los 35 años, tras recibir una fuerte paliza del dueño de un club de Florida.

Text excerpted from: Ultimate Guitar

[scotianostra]

Happy 85th Birthday Scottish Folk singer Archie Fisher born October 23rd 1939.

Archie is a legendary figure in the Scottish folk music world – everybody’s favourite singer and an enormously influential presence both musically and philosophically – he has remained largely unknown to the greater pop music mainstream. While the mainstream’s a poorer place for that, I get the idea the man himself is pretty cool with it that way.

Archie was born in Glasgow into a large singing family, which yielded three professional singers—Archie and his sisters Ray and Cilla Fisher. His father’s appreciation of many musical styles (opera, vaudeville, traditional ballads) proved to be a heavy influence on Archie’s music while his mother, a native Gaelic speaker from the Outer Hebrides, influenced the lyrical quality of his song writing.

Archie first became interested in folk music during the Skiffle era of the late 1950’s and such performers as Lonnie Donegan and Johnny Duncan. During the TV folk boom of the 1960’s and 70’s he appeared regularly with his younger sister Ray on magazine programs and the BBC Hootenanny series, Archie also wrote original songs for BBC documentaries on subjects like rural island communities in the Hebrides, and also appeared on radio and television music programs with regularity.

He was based in Edinburgh and running the folk club The Crown at the time in the contemporary company of musicians and singers such as Barbara Dickson, Robin Williamson and Mike Heron of The Incredible String Band fame and was an early guitar colleague of the late great Bert Jansch.

Archie made two albums with Barbara Dickson, the pick of them, for me being The Fate O’ Charlie, Songs Of The Jacobite Rebellions

Archie’s first self-titled album was recorded in 1968 with the fiddle and mandolin of John McKinnon and whistle player John Doonan. During the mid 1970’s he formed a long-term partnership with Dundee musician Allan Barty.

Archie also got involved in record production with the dynamic Scottish band Silly Wizard. During the 1980’s he turned his attention to freelance radio work and originated several series of documentary programs with his local station Radio Tweed. He then returned to the recording studio during what he describes as one of his most creative song writing periods. With Canadian he toured throughout North America together, and Garnet produced two Fisher albums including the highly acclaimed Sunsets I’ve Galloped Into..

During the 80’s Archie had his own Radio Show Traveling Folk, which he inherited from another folk legend Robin Hall on his local station Radio Tweed.

Following the success of that release, Archie toured throughout North America, playing with English guitarist and songwriter John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. In 2008 Fisher released Windward Away, a collection of introspective ballads that evoke the wild and rough beauty of the Scottish Border country.

A Silent Song, his last album came out in 2015, but Archie has by no means hung up his guitar, and is still touring, well he was up until the covid pandemic,

Archie Fisher was still touring, till lately. The Ardersier Folk Club announced they will be hosting Archie Fisher’s last concert following a long and distinguished career. The 85 year-old, who is regarded as one of the genre’s most important ambassadors, will be playing at Wendy’s Cafe Ardersier on October 29 from 7.30pm.

[valsilverhand-archive]

Phoenix is your new favorite, non-binary rocker. They're the binary you wish you could be. Their sultry tunes are a love note to bands from the early 2000s to the 2020s, taking inspo from.... They hail from Camden, NJ. They know the rough side of the world. When asked what it was like they laughed, a shine in their golden-green eyes, and asked me why I would ever want to know about the armpit of America... Rumor has it that they're about to mesh in with Samurai, but that's just what it is: a rumor. The question was only asked after a selfie between the two was seen briefly on insta... ... one could say that their rivalry with Samurai is legendary, but when they collab it's something out of this world. Silverhand and Phoenix's voice melt into each other like nothing you've ever heard. It was as if they were made to bring the noise together. Phoenix states that their relationship isn't what it seems - the stage is an act... ... Silverhand has decided to not give a comment on the singer/guitar player at this time.

[sweetdreamsjeff]

‘An Emotional Lightning Rod’: Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’ at 25

Jim Shahen

POSTED ON AUGUST 22, 2019

Grace is 25 years old. Jeff Buckley’s debut is gorgeous and heartbreaking, ambitious, daring and eclectic, and, as the sole studio album released during his short life, the only fully realized vision of the artistic brilliance he possessed.

With the expectation that his first LP was the starting point of an iconic recording career, Columbia Records released Grace on Aug. 23, 1994. Entertainment Weekly deemed it “stunningly original” and “too good to be true.” Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune heralded Buckley’s voice as having “a soulful intensity that sends chills.” Peers and legends such as Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and Chris Cornell were effusive in their praise of the album and of Buckley’s tremendous gifts as a singer, guitarist, and composer.

Others were not so kind. Rolling Stone lauded his ambition, but gave Grace a three-star review that featured the one of the poorest-aging opinions in the magazine’s history: “The young Buckley’s vocals don’t always stand up: He doesn’t sound battered or desperate enough to carry off Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’” And Robert Christgau, the “Dean of American Rock Critics,” gave it a C rating and lampooned the hoopla surrounding Buckley by writing, “Let us pray the force of hype blows him all the way to Uranus.”

But those less-than-stellar reviews engaged with Grace on the same terms as the glowing ones — that this was the starting point for an artist with sky-high expectations, talent, and potential. Buckley’s horrific drowning death at age 30 in the Wolf River, an offshoot of the Mississippi, in 1997 ensured it was also his end point. But between his own passing and the passage of time, Grace has only grown in stature.

In 2014, the Library of Congress added Buckley’s “Hallelujah” to the National Recording Registry. Rolling Stone, walking back its prior opinion, ranked the track 259th in its 500 best songs of all time in 2003 and put Grace at 303 in its top 500 albums list the same year. Over the past decade, essentially every music publication of note has included Grace on its list of both top releases of the 1990s and overall albums.

A Vessel

The son of prodigiously talented folk-jazz singer/cult icon Tim Buckley and Mary Guibert, Jeff arrived at music without the guidance of the father he met only once before Tim’s death in 1975 from a drug overdose. While a cornerstone of his legacy is his gorgeous, multi-octave voice, Buckley’s first passion and pursuit in music was the guitar, where he was drawn to the sounds of Led Zeppelin and jazz fusion.

After spending the latter half of the 1980s kicking around as a guitarist in various jazz, metal, punk, funk, reggae, and R&B bands, Buckley began to pursue his own songs. In 1991 he attracted industry attention when, accompanied by guitarist Gary Lucas, he made his public singing debut at a tribute show for his father.

Photo by Merri Cyr / Sony Music

From there, Buckley’s career trajectory changed. After collaborating with Lucas for a year, he went out on his own and became part of the New York City café scene. These shows, later documented on Live at Sin-é, became part of his legend, featuring both his original tunes and an eclectic mix of fare made popular by Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, and Bad Brains.

These café shows regularly attracted record executives and power players, and in October 1992 Buckley signed a three-album deal with Columbia Records. The label had high hopes that Buckley’s brilliance would quickly reveal itself to a wider range of fans. The thinking was that he’d succeed labelmates Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen as someone who would flourish into the finest singer-songwriter of his generation and compile a legendary body of work.

For the band that helped record Grace and toured with him in support, that brilliance was apparent from the beginning.

“This might sound stupid, but I don’t give a shit,” his former drummer Matt Johnson says. “But one time when we were playing, something about his voice went through my body. It was an entirely metaphysical moment where something supernatural happened.

“The man was one of the most extraordinary musicians to ever live,” he adds. “Jeff was this lightning rod of the tone and tenor of all the human emotion in a room. He had this ability to act as an emotional lightning rod, and I always thought he’d hopefully become a vessel for that.”

Saving ‘Grace’

Johnson first met Buckley in summer 1993 and within a couple of months was recruited to be the drummer for the Grace recording sessions. Though the then-23-year-old had had some session and recording experience, Johnson had never worked on a project of this scale before. As he looks back on the experience, Johnson thinks his youth and relative inexperience played a large part in why Buckley wanted him in the band.

“Jeff seemed to be confident he could get what he needed from this ensemble,” he says. “We were young and, in my case, had a lot of insecurities. I think he wanted that — he didn’t want session musicians, he wanted the transformation younger players would bring and create a snapshot of that.”

Photo by Merri Cyr / Sony Music

While Johnson recalls that “the stakes felt high” and there was a “sense of importance of Jeff” to Columbia, he doesn’t remember the process of creating Grace as particularly laborious or fraught. Part of this can be attributed to the calming nature of producer Andy Wallace, who had previously worked on Nirvana’s Nevermind, Run-DMC’s Raising Hell, and multiple albums by Slayer, and his ability to nurture the creative process.

Johnson also attributes a large part of that to Buckley’s multi-instrumental capabilities, uncanny ear, instincts, and efficiency. Because of that, it only took about a day per song to lay down the non-vocal elements.

“I thought he was a very good collaborator, bandleader, and mentor,” Johnson says. “Jeff understood how to both be an individual musician, while also still keenly aware of how to be part of an ensemble.

“His listening was a very powerful thing to be present for,” Johnson continues, comparing Buckley’s auditory capacity to that of composer Johann Sebastian Bach. “It could be textures, entry points, Jeff just knew how stuff should be held together. He could get a pairing of two basic opposites and it’d sound idiosyncratic and perfect.”

While Johnson was there for the entirety of the recording process, Michael Tighe came into Buckley’s band at the tail end of the sessions. The guitarist had met Buckley through a mutual friend in high school and the two had jammed on and off. As Buckley closed in on completing Grace and was putting together his touring band, he reached out to his friend.

Much like Johnson, Tighe was impressed by Buckley’s ability to absorb so many influences and styles, then translate it into his own work.

“He would ruminate on the music a lot and when it came time for recording, he’d really focus,” Tighe says. “He’d usually come in very quickly or he’d obsess on it and get into a perfectionist mindset. But he wouldn’t release something until it was perfect.

Photo by Merri Cyr / Sony Music

“He was really taken with a lot of music,” Tighe says. “He could cast this spell and create a space that was quite meditative. We would sit or stand in a circle and drone on something. We all had very good chemistry; it’s why he put the band together.”

That natural chemistry Buckley had with Tighe and the rest of the group came in handy and allowed Tighe to come in with a late contribution that changed the complexion of Grace.

“One day I played him the chords to ‘So Real.’ It was something I played him in my room (back in high school),” he recalls. “This was after, like, most of the album was done. During rehearsals he said, ‘Hey, remember that song you played in your room?’”

Thus, “So Real” came to be. To make room for it on Grace, Buckley bumped “Forget Her” off the album. This move came much to the chagrin of Columbia Records, which had planned to issue “Forget Her” as the lead single. Neither Johnson nor Tighe can recall quite why Buckley held such disdain for “Forget Her,” a tune of his own composition, but both vividly remember his adamance in replacing it.

“‘So Real’ saved the record for him,” Johnson says. “And it points toward the sound he was going for, it’s the sound of a door opening to the future.”

A Cult Hero

When Grace was finally released, grunge rock, hip-hop, and The Lion King soundtrack dominated the charts. There weren’t many acts out there simultaneously channeling Nina Simone, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Smiths, and Led Zeppelin. As such, it took a long time for the record to take hold and capture the imagination of listeners: It peaked at 149 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart that year and didn’t reaching platinum-selling status until 2006.

Photo by Merri Cyr / Sony Music

Even without immediate success, the participants knew they had made something special.

“You can go back now and think about the production and the mix from that time period, but I think it’s perfect in its own way,” Tighe notes. “I think Jeff was very aware of how good the album was, but I think it bothered him slightly the album wasn’t more successful. But he was already a cult hero. We all thought it’d be a longer career and that would change.

“The zeitgeist was so different back then. There weren’t bands like Coldplay, Radiohead had just started,” Tighe says. “When I play it now for people, I love watching the glaze that comes over their eyes. Ultimately, it’s his voice, people just have an immediate emotional reaction to his voice.”

Johnson’s feelings on Grace are tied strongly to the recording sessions, that moment in time they captured and what it all meant personally. The fact that it connected with people well after the fact is an added bonus.

“When it comes to Grace, I feel very, very lucky. I’m never in a position to look at it like anything but a fuckin’ penny from heaven,” he says. “There isn’t one song I don’t like. When I hear it, it’s like I made this amazing best image of me that could be captured in any scenario.

“I can’t find fault with it and it’s not like I haven’t heard criticism,” Johnson continues. “But the feeling I got recording it was absolutely spine-chilling. I did not ever more feel what the drive of my life was, and it could not have borne better fruits. To have Rolling Stone or whoever now praise it is icing on the fucking cake. I don’t ever feel like, ‘What the fuck took you so long?’”

Musical Echoes

It took a few years for Buckley’s influence on fellow artists to be heard. By Tighe’s estimation, it was around the early 2000s that he started hearing Buckley-esque melodies on the radio, including from bands such as Coldplay and Radiohead, who drew inspiration from Buckley’s chord progressions and structures.

“Now you just hear it all the time,” he says. “There was that moment a while back someone did ‘Hallelujah’ on one of those shows like American Idol. The zeitgeist has changed a lot.”

Of course, Buckley’s legacy is more than just the alt-rock waves of decades past and singing competitions designed to highlight vocal chops. There’s a new breed of singer-songwriters that have used Grace as a starting point for their endeavors.

Madison Cunningham (photo by Claire Marie Vogel)

Madison Cunningham is a 22-year-old musician who just released the LP Who Are You Now and cites Buckley as one of her heroes. On songs like “Something to Believe In” and “Last Boat to Freedom,” you can hear her use that admiration to create her own artistic statement.

She was gifted a copy of Grace from a friend as a teenager and at first she didn’t dig it. But once she revisited it a few months later, it was a revelation.

“I didn’t get it and I really wanted to get it, but it was a big palette stretch for me,” Cunningham recalls. “But once I did, it was like, ‘Whoa, I get it! This is like the song that’s inside my head!’

“Always his voice stands out. Still to this day I haven’t heard a voice like that,” she continues. “There was such a depth to his work, you’ve got to sit a minute to think about it all.”

While Buckley’s vocal range and power moved and inspired her, what’s seeped into Cunningham’s work was the way he played guitar and arranged his material to incorporate all the different sounds that moved him.

“He changed how I played guitar,” she says. “He was so bold with his chord progressions. There’s certain chords he played that are just very unique to him. Even now when I play something, I’m like, ‘Oh, those are Buckley chords.’

“There’s just something special to him,” Cunningham adds. “He had his own genre and sound and was very unashamedly himself. That’s very hard to find.”

Cunningham identifies why, 25 years later, Grace and Jeff Buckley are still relevant parts of the cultural landscape. It’s why there’s interest in the various bootlegs, live takes, demos, and the recent biographical graphic novel his estate has released in the past two decades.

The latest batch of such releases, timed for the anniversary, includes four concert albums as well as expanded digital versions of Grace (including “Forget Her”), Mystery White Boy (a full-length live album), and Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, an album of material Buckley recorded in 1996 and 1997 and was first released a year after his death. All will be available digitally on Aug. 23.

In the years since Buckley’s tragic demise, both Tighe and Johnson have gone on to work on other major projects. Tighe’s written for and worked with Adele, Mark Ronson, and Liam Gallagher. Johnson has played with Rufus Wainwright and Jade Bird and had a five-year stint with St. Vincent.

Both men are active, talented, and in-demand career musicians. Neither needs to relive their time with Buckley as a way to boost themselves. But both are enthusiastic in discussing their friend and his gifts, and are doing their part to ensure people remember him.

“As a special talent, he was pretty ineffable,” Tighe says. “He was attracted to music with spirituality and he could embody that. It wasn’t something he learned, it was just given. He was incredible.”

“With Jeff, because he died in such an unforeseen way, I try to make the time to talk about him,” Johnson says. “Jeff had a certain intelligence and this explosion of emotion that was a soaring, insightful, penetrating whole vision of a man. I’ll always do what I can to honor that.”

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Grace, Columbia/Legacy has shared a previously unreleased live video of “Lover, You Should Have Come Over,” filmed during a concert in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Feb. 19, 1994.