Saturday, July 7, 2018

The Storm...and Some Stuff About Music

Yes, I'ma walking fukin' billboard

That was crazy yesterday! T. O.R.R.E.N.T.I.A.L. rain! I got soaked and the streets... The streets were flooded worse than the peak of the flood. I was actually quite shocked that not one local news source mentioned anything about that chaos that erupted in that good half an hour or more. everyone must've been drenched, there was no way that you couldn't have been, umbrella or not!

Was just reading about another crazy storm in Saskatchewan that "left trailers destroyed and campers trapped by falling trees".
I don't get into the whole 'global warming'  fight. But something is changing, whether that's the Earth on it's own, the Sun, the galaxy, us huemahns who knows
We're but a small planet in an absolutely massive, unimaginably huge universe. We sit in an odd spot in our galaxy that is whipping through interstellar space. Who knows what effects, large and small all of these things in conjunction have on our planet.
A friend of mine that I speak with on Friday night chats, believes that even by nudging an asteroid has a ripple effect on our World. Who's to say he's wrong?

I've been watching 'Crossfire Hurricane' a documentary on the Rolling Stones. It's frontmen like Mick Jagger, Bruce Dickinson, Mike Patton and many others that have influenced how I performed/perform on stage.
I grew up with my Mother's record collection of Nana Mouskouri, Chris De Burgh, some of my Aunt's records, The Beatles (the only Beatles record I ever liked was 'Beatles '65')... And of course records like Jesus Christ Superstar, Fiddler On The Roof and Godspell. Even though I had dumped religion at a young age, the music, the sound and songwriting of those albums stuck very well with me.
The idea of the frontman as a performer, as a showman was very much within me. Watching Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, Rob Halford of Judas Priest, Alice Cooper and his theatrics. I always felt that a concert needed to be a show, it has to be about much more than just the music. When you're sitting at home listening to a record, engrossed in the sound and the fantasy that arises in your head, those images invoked by the lyrics, you're in your own private world the way that your brain interprets the music.. But when it's live, that private fantasy is robbed from you and you're at the mercy of the band and the lead singer's vision is now replacing your fantasy. The vocalist is the source of the vision, the wizard who created it all.
So when my first band played it's very first show at the Fredericton playhouse (yes, it was only one song, but what a place to be birthed), I knew somewhere inside, despite the anxiety rushing through me that I had to be something akin to my idols, even if I was only 14/15 years old.

My first band K.G. Wolfe was immature, young, in a city that had no real 'Metal' scene, there were awesome Rock and Metal bands like Holy Order and Vendetta Rose, but personally I don't think there was a band like us, on the cusp of Punk/Hardcore and Metal. I knew I wasn't a great singer, so I tried my damnedest to put on a great show and if that meant flopping my body around, jumping as high as I could, running around like a crazy fucker, that's what I did.

Dreamkick I was able to take that a bit further and I was able to put some singing into  it and because both Peter Gillies and I had ego's to feed, we both took command of the stage. We had a fucking blast with each other and the audience. we'd run through the crowd and run back on the tables. At practice we'd all talk about how if we couldn't be a great band, if a lot of people didn't show up, we'd still put on the best possible show we could squeeze out of ourselves.

With the Wasteland Zombies, I tried a bit further to bring a bit of a show with my mask for 'The Town Fair', but at that young age, I was still I think to shy and my thinking too narrow to really do something theatrical. Today I have a huge envy for a band like 'Ghost'. Tobias Forge the mastermind behind that band, when I read interviews with him, he grew up on a lot of the same music I listened to. Mind you I am almost a decade older than Forge is. He cites a lot of the same albums and bands, Rock operas that I hold dear.
IF, I had the money, I would have done the Wasteland Zombies reunion right and invested in some great props. It was and is something I talked about with the guys about doing some really cool shit like having tombstones, some of Mike Field's artwork up on stage. ZOmbie props and the guys in zombie masks. Just something different. Even if the band is in it's hayday it was i guess something I didn't want in later years to think, 'Man I really wished I'd done that.'... And I think that's something I've come to learn in life. If you think of something do it, then later on in life, it's not that you'll really regret it, it's just something you might wish you'd done. Then that memory is done.

End of Rant....



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