If You Remember The 60’s …

Rolling Stone needs to come up with shorter titles for their articles, man.  20 Albums Rolling Stone Loved In The Sixties That You’ve Never Heard makes for a title that spills onto a second line!

Anyway, it’s an interesting list, and a bit of a memory test.  I mean, who remembers the rumours that The Masked Marauders were The Beatles plus Dylan and Jagger?  Not me.

A few bands I forgot about without any noticeable downside:  Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for example (talk about long titles!)

A few that live up to the article’s title (I have never heard of them):  Autosalvage, The Good Rats, The Insect Trust, Wild Man Fischer.

Maybe we never heard of these artists because their names were so, like, nuts?  More than a few seem to have existed inside Frank Zappa’s orbit, I notice.  Actually, I do remember Wild Man Fischer – but I forgot on purpose.

Not sure why Wildflowers by Judy Collins is on the list though.  Who doesn’t remember Both Sides Now?  Ditto Those Were The Days by Marky Hopkin.

I Can See Through Your Masks

Go have a listen to Eddie Vedder’s rendition of Masters of War at the Bob Dylan 30^th Anniversary Concert.

            You ain’t worth the blood that runs in your veins

            Even Jesus would never forgive what you do

            All the money you made will never buy back your soul

Ouch!  It might not be the most popular protest song of all time, but it’s got to be the angriest, and Vedder’s performance is spellbinding.

Is that kind of anger still out there and I just can’t find it?  Don’t we have a few things to protest about?  The world don’t look too perfect to me, man.  Why aren’t we, like we used to say, telling it like it is?

Comeback Kids

Guitar World’s 10 Best Comeback Albums of All Time proves that you can’t keep a good band down.

Even the best artists sometimes:

1) Take risks that fans don’t dig

2) Let success get in the way

3) Run out of ideas

4) Lose their way

5) Just get overtaken by something new and exciting

Or, as the list also illustrates, people die and stuff.  So bravo AC/DC!  Well done, Foo Fighters!

But most of the list is about a wake-up call, followed by a determined (and successful) effort to proclaim, “Not down for the count!”

U2, Metallica, Johnny Cash, Aerosmith, John Lennon, Deep Purple, the Stones, The Dixie Chicks …  they’ve all proven they had a lot more to give.

Good for them … and lucky us!