Petty scholars well remember Torpedoes as the album that proved to MCA Records he was a worthwhile investment. Everyone else remembers it for "Here Comes My Girl," "Even the Losers," "Don't Do Me Like That" and a not-so-minor flash of genius he decided to call "Refugee."
Better than: Getting an extra nickel in your dimebag
Download: Dark Side of the…wait, surely you already have this, right???
As only one of four U.S. dates and the last stop on the tour (perhaps to make up for the rained-out Rice Stadium gig years ago?), the Houston classic rock audience responded by rewarding the former Pink Floyd singer/bassist with a sold out show. I’d never seen the lawn so packed before, proving that sometimes a band’s catalogue of material is so strong that it can overcome any hesitancies about who is actually playing it.
For the show’s first half, Waters and his extensive, polished-to-a-sheen ensemble (including late-model Thin Lizzy guitarist Snowy White) offered up a heaping helping of Floyd warhorses (“Have a Cigar,” “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,” “Mother,” “Wish You Were Here”), rarities (“The Fletcher Memorial Home”) and solo material (“Perfect Sense-Pt. 1” from Amused to Death).
But the best moments came at unexpected times. The heavily trippy early Floyd track “Set Controls for the Heart of the Sun” was a mindbending blowout, complete with projected footage of the then-young band frolicking on a beach (ah, Syd, so young and vibrant…).
Better late than never, right? In the spirit of Mudcrutch, here are some other classic-rock heavyweights' warmup bands.
The Beatles - John, Paul and George all got to know each other in the Quarrymen, the Liverpudlian schoolboy band Elvis-crazed John started in the late '50s. Only Ringo, who came aboard at the relatively late date of 1962, was always a Beatle.
Jimmy Page - Broke into Britain's touring ranks with Neil Christian & the Crusaders before an illness indirectly led to his signing on with the Yardbirds, also the future incubator of Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. You know the rest...
John Fogerty - Pre-CCR, the 2008 RodeoHouston and ACL festival headliner formed the Golliwogs with brother Tom in the late '50s. Despite releasing several 45s, their career was, to coin a phrase, stillborn on the bayou.
Better than: Getting your fortune told by Madam Marie on the Boardwalk – accurately
Download: “Candy’s Room,” “She’s the One,” “Girls in Their Summer Clothes,” “Badlands,” “American Land”
For two and a half hours and without a break, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band held a rock and roll revival meeting with a level of energy that can only mean he’s replaced some of his 58-year-old parts with bionic equivalents. Leaping, running, and spinning around his grounded mike stand, it was tiring just to freakin’ watch the show – much less be the one putting it on.
Oh, and then Little Steven makes records and tours around the world with his childhood buddy, some guy named Bruce. It’s a good thing that “The Sopranos” is finally over…
The bandaned whirlwind stopped moving long enough to talk with Houstoned Rocks about a wide-ranging variety of topics and why Michael Jackson is a member of a club he shouldn’t be in.
HR: You just did a Springsteen gig last night in Canada, and now you’re in L.A. this afternoon. I’m surprised you have time to do an interview.
LS: Well, I am operating at close to capacity! (laughs). I’ve got a lot of help and people doing things. You know, I love everything I do. I couldn’t do it if were an obligation! But a lot of my energy is spent with [Wicked Cool] trying to redefine what the music business is these days. These questions take up a lot of time! I find that I’ve had to stop being creative just to spend more time on the business end. I know I should be writing more music.
HR: The Underground Garage is such a great concept for a radio station. You hear a lot of older music that the classic rock stations don’t touch, and new tunes that modern rock stations won’t.
In Beatles lore, a woman named May Pang is forever linked to the phrase “Lost Weekend.” That 1973 “weekend,” which lasted 18 months, is when John Lennon left Yoko Ono and, according to legend, wandered drunkenly in a haze until she took him back. (He was thrown out of LA’s Troubador nightclub twice, once for heckling the Smothers Brothers and once for walking around with a Kotex on his forehead.)
But May Pang, the young personal assistant he was living with, remembers the time differently. Lennon, she says, was mostly happy and productive, working on Walls and Bridges and his oldies album.
Since shutting off her mike, Steele has headed up a marketing and PR firm, ran and sold an online space-memorabilia Web site, and created Smart Girls Rock, an online community for young girls.
Steele has distilled much of her experiences in her new book, Rock to the Top: What I Learned About Success from the World’s Greatest Rock Stars (Brown Books, 192 pp., $17.95). It’s equal parts music memoir, self-help, business advice, and band primer book—and there were “hundreds” of rock and roll lifestyle and celebrity anecdotes that for reasons of space (or modesty) didn’t make it in. Houstoned Rocks spoke with Steele about business, pleasure, and why Lanny Griffith could have a second career as a wedding planner.
For more than 40 years he’s been making eardrums ring and, according to his physician, growing calluses on his own. But Blue Cheer founding bassist/vocalist Dickie Peterson shows no desire to turn down the volume knob on his power trio. Houstoned Rocks recently spoke with the sage stoner while he was somewhere on the East Coast, touring to promote the band’s surprisingly powerful new record, the aptly titled What Doesn’t Kill You…
Houstoned Rocks: Your Houston show piggybacks on Blue Cheer’s SXSW showcase and appearance at High Times magazine’s “Doobie Awards,” where you’re getting the Lifetime Achievement nod and have been nominated for “Best Pot Song.” How did you feel when you heard that news?
Unlike the long-running Dick’s Picks series, which presents full shows, the newer Road Trips cherrypicks choice cuts from several concerts played around the same time. The just-released Volume 2: October ’77 features five tracks from the band’s October 14 gig at U of H’s Hofheinz Pavilion: “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo,” a cover of Marty Robbins’ “El Paso,” a 17-plus minute “Playing in the Band,” “Brokedown Palace” and a reprise of “Playing.”
In addition to being the coolest year ever in the history of the universe because it saw the release of Star Wars, 1977 saw the Dead’s profile reach a pretty high level - albeit not often to the liking of their diehard fans.
Unfortunately, Wood’s recollections consist of precious little about the music and fewer anecdotes about his fellow Stones than one might reasonably expect. Instead, chapter upon chapter detail Wood’s drinking / drugging / fucking / palling-with-Keith escapades that run together and, frankly, grow tiresome after awhile.
By the time Wood locks himself in the family bathroom for two days straight to freebase with a friend, you half hope that the ghost of Brian Jones would show up and never let him emerge.
That’s hardly all the Zep news. Banshee-like vocalist Robert Plant’s new collaboration with Americana/bluegrass siren Allison Krauss, Raising Sand (Rounder), is No. 6 on this week’s Billboard 200. And just today, XM Radio debuted its first dedicated artist channel, something rival Sirius has been doing for a while with Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Buffett and the Rolling Stones, to name a few. Guess who XM picked? XM LED, channel 59, signed on at midnight and is running the sound track to 1975’s The Song Remains the Same, which Rhino reissued last month, on a loop all day. Alongside the Song DVD and its two-CD sound track, Rhino’s brand-new two-CD compilation Mothership will be in stores Tuesday for all your hard-rocking holiday shopping needs. For those who prefer shopping by mouse, the band’s entire catalog will be available from all major online retailers starting Tuesday. (A review of Mothership will be posted soon on Houstoned Rocks’s new recurring installment, “Classic Rock Corner.”)
Of the fact that Chicago jumped the shark there can be no debate. Few bands have ever done so with such appalling clarity. It still seems hard to believe that even some of the people who were involved with such toe-cringingly vile schmaltz as “Hard to Say I’m Sorry,” “Hard Habit to Break” and “You’re the Inspiration” were also involved win the creation of “Saturday in the Park,” “Beginnings,” and “25 or 6 to 4,” which is still cool even after you realize that the guitar riff is a blatant rip-off of Led Zeppelin’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.”
So on what night did old, good Chicago die? It’s tempting to say it was June 14, 1976 – the release date Chicago X, which included Peter Cetera’s cheesy hit ballad “If You Leave Me Now,” the seeds of the destruction of the band’s legacy.
I felt a rush and a little bit of a chill. Gregg Allman, the man who was my gateway drug into the world of blues and soul, was on the line.
I asked him where he was calling from, and he told me he was in New Orleans and that it was raining. I told him it was raining here as well. "It's raining all over the world," he said. He then launched into a bit of Brook Benton's "Rainy Night in Georgia," finishing up with a detailed description of how the label looked. He might have given me the catalog number if I hadn't interrupted him.
I told him how he had introduced me to the music of Bobby "Blue" Bland and any number of other R&B greats. "I've got a 30-gig iPod within arm’s reach right now,” Allman said. “I was a CD guy until one day I was on the road movin' pretty good in my Corvette. I had two big ol' visors full of CDs and I was pickin' one out when I looked up and saw an 18-wheeler headed straight for me. I managed to dodge it and went out and bought an iPod the next day. I asked Derek [Allman’s guitarist Trucks] to load it up for me because he knows what I like. I've got Bland's whole catalog on there. Muddy and the Wolf too."
Arrowfest
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, The Woodlands
October 14, 2007
Better Than: A Sunday with Matt Schaub, Jesus Christ or mainstream commercial radio.
Download: “Good Girls Don’t” (the Knack); “Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll” (Blue Öyster Cult); “This Ol’ Cowboy” (Marshall Tucker Band); “Jane” (Jefferson Starship); “The Kid Is Hot Tonight” (Loverboy); “Carry On Wayward Son” (Kansas); “Ready for Love” (Bad Company)
This year’s Arrowfest, assembled and sponsored by KKRW-FM, “The Arrow,” had probably the widest variety of bands and styles of its ten-year run. Running times were on or very close to schedule for the mostly 45-minute sets, and an overcast sky kept things cool for the all-day classic rock blowout. Here’s a blow-by-blow, band-by-band rundown:
But when it was announced a few years back that he would join guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor for something called “Queen + Paul Rodgers,” multiple heads were scratched as visions of the tough-sounding, blue collar Rodgers taking over the flamboyant Freddie Mercury’s role – much less his harlequin tights or yellow military jacket – seemed downright… odd.
However, the end result (both onstage and a live album) proved not an abomination, but a surprisingly worthy classic-rock mash-up. In addition to further work with Queen, Rodgers has been touring solo, and recently released the CD/DVD Live in Glasgow, featuring tunes from across his entire career.
Sunday at the Woodlands, he’ll soon be headlining the 93.7 FM’s annual Arrowfest show, along with the current lineups of Kansas, Blue Oyster Cult, the Marshall Tucker Band, Loverboy, the Knack and Starship with Mickey Thomas. Houstoned Rocks recently talked with the leather-lunged power singer about old days, new days and what his real motivation for keeping in shape is. - Bob Ruggiero
Houstoned Rocks: Here in Houston, you’re the final act on an all-day outdoor festival bill. Will you approach picking your material any different from, say, a solo gig indoors at night?
Paul Rodgers: Not really. This is my opportunity to put all of the material from my bands together, plus some blues and new songs. Wherever we are, when we open up with the chords to, say, “Shooting Star” or “All Right Now” they’re recognized immediately and that’s great. And I do like the audience participation.
HR: What made you decide to put together Live at Glasgow?
