Why, back in MY day . . .

I was playing around in YouTube tonight and got to looking up some videos of all the bands I used to listen to when I was young and I was really surprised at the wealth of timeless music that YouTube has to offer.

I've been around long enough that my neckties have gone in and out of style at least twice and although I listen to most kinds of music (nearly everything but country & western or rap), I primarily listen to either end of the music spectrum while I paint. My usual fare is either classical (nothing like Mozart or Beethoven for introspective pieces, or Stravinsky or Elgar for dramatic or dark works) or punk (nothing like Green Day or Offspring for rebellious stuff or Gas Huffer and The Vandals to get you pissed off).

I also listen to a LOT of Blues music (Johnny Winter, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Robert Cray, etc.) and old "soul" music like Aretha Franklin, Curtis Knight, Little Anthony and the Imperials to set me into a sort of urban mood.

Tonight, I jumped into a time machine and look up the music I listen to while growing up and while in those tender years in high school. I was already in high school LONG before most of you were born (1968) and the music making the round with the "underground" crowd (what you now call alternative) were my favorites.

Band had funny names back then (just like they do now) and although many people have heard of Hendrix or Cream, most of the stuff I listened to is relatively unfamiliar to younger generations. I'd like to introduce you all to a few of the sounds of a very turbulent adolescence and I hope you can all appreciate the fact that, in spite of all the years that have passed, I'm seeing history repeat itself again. We are in an unpopular war, our government is full of morons and criminals, dangerous drugs (NOT marijuana) are taking a toll on the population, civil rights and racial unrest is STILL in the news and I'm STILL PISSED OFF about all of these things!

For some footstomping guitar there is no one better than the man who Jimi Hendrix once called, "the whitest Black man who ever lived," Johnny Winter: [link]

And speaking of Jimi Hendrix: [link]

Then a song some of you older Deviants might remember from one of the foremost guitarists of the era (and one of the best bass guitarists and drummers - Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker), Cream: [link]

Next, a band named after a popular acid (for those of you who don't know, LSD, a hallucinogenic drug popular in the 60s), Blue Cheer: [link]125zt7aZKc&feature=related

Next to the last is Ten Years After with a song that is unfortunately prophetic in its concerns: [link]

This last band played this song at Woodstock and it was a big favorite as another useless war was throwing young men into the meat grinder. We didn't leave THAT war until we'd lost nearly 59,000 soldiers. Everyone was postive that once we left the entire area would crumble into Communism (it didn't) and we'd be fighting our enemies on the shores of California (we didn't). Listen to this song and remember the adage that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it! [link]


Hope you all liked what you heard.