#152 – How Many More Times

#152 – How Many More Times by Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin

– I might be in a time warp because I can’t think of any other song that has switched-up decades on me like this one. I know that statement might leave you a bit dazed and confused, but this 1969 blast of hard blues rock has morphed Led Zeppelin into one of my favorite surf groups of the 2000’s.

Yeah, I know. I’m a very confused – and a bit dazed – Classic Rocker. But there is a reason…

How Many More Times was the final track on side two of Led Zeppelin’s self-titled debut album. Then again, their first four albums were all self-titled with ascending numbers to help us keep track of which one we were listening to. And though this wasn’t officially assigned a Roman numeral, it still goes down as Led Zeppelin I.

And it still goes down as this Classic Rocker’s favorite Led Zep album.

I can put the needle down on track one and let it go though both sides until the end. Led Zeppelin IV would be my second fav with Stairway To Heaven and II after that with Whole Lotta Love, but there are tracks on both those LPs where I’d pick up the stereo needle (I’m doing vinyl memories here) and skip to the next song.

I never had to do that with Led Zeppelin I.

Signed, sealed, delivered

My introduction to the group happened when I was in high school and hanging around my best friend’s house. I was waiting for him to get ready so we could go out and do something when his younger brother – who was actually closer to me in age – told me he had just bought this new album by this new band. He said I needed to hear one of the songs because it was “really scary.”

I don’t remember any “really scary” rock or pop songs before 1969.

I’ll guess guitar feedback solos from Jimi Hendrix could stretch imaginations to the dark side, though they never did with me. His top songs, Purple Haze and Foxy Lady were standards at school dances along with Herman’s Hermits and The Beatles.

Also Jim Morrison’s lyrics with The Doors were supposed to be sinister in some way, but again they never took my mind there. The group was more pop at this time with Hello, I Love You, Touch Me and others that made Morrison more of a pop star than the Lizard King legend that grew up around him later.

————————————————————————

Three of the wildest concerts in Beatles – and rock & roll – history!

The Beatles At Shea Stadium:

The Story Behind Their Greatest Concert

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The Beatles In Cleveland:

Memories, Facts & Photos About The Notorious 1964 & 1966 Concerts

*

Both books available in paperback and eBook through Amazon.com

For information about Dave’s author programs visit BeatlesProgram.com

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So we sat down in his living room, he dimmed the lighting for visual effect, and cranked up Dazed and Confused. And yeah – it sounded “really scary.” I remember sitting on the couch examining the album sleeve cover with the Hindenburg Zeppelin exploding. On the back there was a photo of the four band members staring at the camera. That was my introduction to Led Zeppelin and my friends and I really had no clue they would go on to become one of the biggest rock groups ever.

Surf’s Up!

How Many More Times joined this list on October 27th. But as you might remember from the dazed and confused remark I made to open this Classic Rocker rambling, it wasn’t a “really scary” scene going through my head that morning.

It was somewhere around 2005 and instead of a dimly lit living room, there was bright sunshine over sand and waves at Florida’s Cocoa Beach. And instead of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, my ten-year old son Dangerous Paul and sixteen-year old nephew Battling Blake were competing in a surfing contest.

And no, this Spring Break family adventure didn’t include a cover version of Led Zeppelin I being given the surf treatment by The Beach Boys or Jan & Dean. It was the original album I had been introduced to in my friend’s “really scary” darkened living room decades earlier, now blasting out from concert-sized speakers loud enough for sea-soaked surfers and sun-drenched beachcombers to hear over crashing waves, screeching seagulls, amplified announcements and a cheering crowd.

The surfing contest itself was also different.

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There were heats for the professionals and amateurs, but the event we were there for was the “first-timers.” The only rule to enter was that you had never surfed before. The winner would be the one that most impressed the judges while actually standing on a board and riding a wave.

Dangerous Paul and Battling Blake fit the novice requirements and along with a few others, were given a quick surfing lesson on the beach. Then they were set loose in the waves as Led Zeppelin I provided the soundtrack.

Not him – but close enough!

Both guys did better than expected with Dangerous Paul, thanks to a couple years of competitive gymnastics and a show-off attitude, trying headstands on his board. He came close a few times before wiping out and it was worth the cheers from the crowd seated in the stands on the beach.

Both finished in the top three out of… well, I don’t remember how many competed, but it didn’t matter. They each won a medal, special “water shirts” with a surfboard brand logo, and bragging rights for winning a surfing contest without knowing how to surf.

Very cool.

So depending on whether I’m sitting in a darkened living room or in bright sunshine somewhere near a beach, How Many More Times and can fit the soundtrack for both. And if that doesn’t leave me dazed and confused, I don’t know what else will.

Cowabunga dudes – and keep rockin’!

Have a comment? Please use the form below.

Here’s a 1969 Led Zeppelin television appearance performing How Many More Times.

 

 

To purchase Led Zeppelin I – The Classic Rocker’s fav Zep LP – visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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#153 – Heart of Glass

#153 – Heart of Glass by Blondie

Blondie

– I’ll go ahead and claim to have developed at least some semblance of New York City street smarts by the time we closed out the 1970’s. That’s a brave statement considering I’d only lived in the city for a couple years. It was basically the result of a make-it-or-get-out survival technique learned from moving to the city while it was stuck in the seediest era of its modern history. With lots of time riding the subways and a job at Broadway theaters that included making night deposits of large sums of money in the seediest of all the seedy neighborhoods, Times Square, I picked up a defense mechanism that native city dwellers are born with:

Keep my eyes open and my senses on alert.

I was never near being as street as the punks and new wave rockers that hung around the seedy clubs in The Bowery and Manhattan’s Lower East Side. For one reason, that scene never appealed to me. I can understand later generations glossing it over as 1970’s urban poverty rock and roll chic thanks to the great music that came out of clubs like CBGB and The Great Gildersleeves. But I was more inclined to hang around neighborhoods where I didn’t have to pay too close attention to anyone walking behind me when I went out to buy a newspaper or cup of coffee.

There was no way I would fit in with that scene’s hard core street smart society.

Debbie Harry

By the time I arrived, the bands that had made it out of the Bowery clubs were a bit older and had moved onto bigger stages. That would include The Ramones, Talking Heads and Blondie, just to mention the upper tier of famous. What was left behind seemed to be mostly teenagers and early twenty-something wannabe’s who gravitated to what was still a seedy neighborhood after the now-gone rockers had given it some notoriety.

Is that where Heart of Glass takes me for this episode of The Classic Rocker?

To be honest, not really. As mentioned, I wasn’t part of the downtown scene where Blondie and the others had paid their dues. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t aware of what was going on.

I had heard of Blondie by the time the song came out in the winter of 1979. Anyone with an interest in pop music living in Manhattan would have to. But I don’t remember the song or band being anything close to ground-breaking or the new thing everyone always seemed to be waiting for. Heart of Glass was just one of many catchy songs getting a lot of play on the radio and in clubs where we would hang out.

————————————————————————

Three of the wildest concerts in Beatles – and rock & roll – history!

The Beatles At Shea Stadium:

The Story Behind Their Greatest Concert

+

The Beatles In Cleveland:

Memories, Facts & Photos About The Notorious 1964 & 1966 Concerts

*

Both books available in paperback and eBook through Amazon.com

For information about Dave’s author programs visit BeatlesProgram.com

————————————————————————

But it wasn’t ground-breaking or a new thing to rock my subconscious when I woke up with it in my head on October 26th. It was on my digital playlist and I had just heard it before heading off to my mind’s Club Dreamland. So with a flair of street smarts, I’ll shove it into the recent memory category.

Not too seedy for me

Even though I don’t recall anything specific when listening to Blondie’s Heart of Glass, it inspires me to dredge up images of the other New York City club scenes we hit while this song was riding the music charts. I never ventured inside CBGB, though I did rock to a few bands in the neighboring Great Gildersleeves. For the most part, the places we hit didn’t need an extreme teenaged punk attitude or dangerous look to fit in. But a sense of street smarts didn’t hurt.

I’ll name-drop a few.

Studio 54 was still a hot spot for the disco-scene wannabe’s, even though it was on its last legs the couple of times I went there. I don’t remember having any problems getting by the legendary velvet rope doorman, but once inside my interest was mainly just to look around, have a couple drinks and dance to a couple songs.

It was also cool to have some bragging rights just to say I had been there (and done that). And that’s what I just did (thanks for reading and being so impressed – ha!).

Next…

Doesn’t look like a Sunday night

My pals and I also hit Max’s Kansas City on (usually) Sunday nights. It was considered an “off night” based on crowds that packed the place on Fridays and Saturdays, and we could always get a seat at the bar. For a Blondie connection, Debbie Harry used to be a server at Max’s. But she had left for the music charts by the time we rolled in.

The third club I’m reminded of from this era was another legend, The Mudd Club which was located on White Street in Lower Manhattan. Since the TriBeCa district was a long haul for my gang of non-punks who were centered in Midtown Manhattan near Gramercy Park and Union Square, we only sprung for the taxi fare when it was a planned destination.

And since the venue was earning a major destination reputation for the rock and new wave scene in 1979, we made the field trip a couple of times just to say – once again – we had been there (and done that).

In case you’re not familiar with The Mudd Club and its reputation, check out the Talking Heads song, Life During Wartime.

“This ain’t no Mudd Club, or CBGB, I ain’t got time for that now.”

So yeah, I’m talking about THAT Mudd Club. And I have time for that right now…

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Our first visit was almost a major disappointment. After my then-girlfriend and two buddies got out of our cab on a dark White Street sometime after midnight, we saw the line to get in stretched around the block. There was also a velvet rope type of atmosphere with a large bouncer not letting anyone in until he felt like it.

At least that’s what it seemed like. It also seemed like he was not going to feel like letting us in.

The Mudd Club

Since my girlfriend wasn’t the type to stand in line and had born-in-her street smarts as a native New Yorker, she led the charge to find an alternative entrance. While sneaking through an alley behind the club, we spotted a door. We thought it could be a back door to The Mudd Club, but there was no way… And if it was, there was no way it would be unlocked…

And… surprise! It was.

One of us pulled the door open and walked into a dark room just behind the bar. We peeked around a corner and saw we weren’t far from the dance floor, so an on-the-spot plan was made to dance our way into the club. The goal was that we would easily blend in since it was crowded and the music was loud.

And… surprise! It worked.

We stayed in The Mudd Club for at least an hour, but it didn’t live up to our heightened expectations. Instead of the celebrity rockers featured on Page Six of The New York Post as they pretended to hide from the paparazzi (while paying publicists to make sure they were seen, photographed and featured) it didn’t seem any different than any other rock club. The best entertainment factor was all the girls looking like Debbie Harry and guys looking like Keith Richards.

My main memory is The Mudd Club looked like a sea of bleached or black dyed hair and black leather jackets. So, it really wasn’t our scene.

But… surprise! We tried it again.

Only this time we didn’t have an easy access pass…

After another cab ride we used our street smarts to bypass the line outside and headed down the familiar alley to our secret back door entrance. With my girlfriend acting like she had the cool of Debbie Harry and me assuming an attitude not even close to the cool of Keith Richards, we opened the door.

It was dark and loud, but not enough to miss seeing what was standing in front of us.

One of the Keith’s?!

Obviously, the back door entrance was not a secret anymore and we were face to face with a large bouncer. His job – also obviously – was to deter street smart deprived wannabe’s like us from skipping the line and paying a high cover charge to enter a club where you might actually see the real Debbie or Keith blending in with the wannabe Debbie’s and Keith’s.

Our not-so-friendly bouncer’s appearance certainly opened my eyes and heightened my senses – thus raising my New York street smarts aptitude.

Since I’m not afraid to exaggerate certain situations, let’s just say the bouncer was twice my size, had arms bigger than my legs and I saw flames coming out of his nostrils. He also sounded very punk rock-ish when he emphasized the “F-Bomb” when asking us, “Where the f**** do you think you’re going?”

And… surprise! That was the end of our conversation and final destination journey to The Mudd Club.

Heart of Glass? Maybe the song was playing at the club that night, but I would’ve never heard it since my concentration was on getting us a cab and back to our less-seedy neighborhood. But even if I’d had enough street smarts to get past the back door bouncer and into The Mudd Club and Debbie Harry was actually hanging out avoiding the paparazzi, it’s doubtful I could’ve picked her out from the sea of bleached hair hanging out with the sea of Keiths.

Here’s the “official” video of Blondie performing Heart of Glass

 

 

To purchase Blondie Greatest Hits with Heart of Glass visit Amazon.com

——————————————————————————–

Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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#154 – When Doves Cry

#154 – When Doves Cry by Prince

Prince

– When the film Purple Rain came out in 1984, Prince kicked up his popularity a major notch by adding a Movie Star credit to his resume. With the soundtrack single When Doves Cry hitting the top of the music charts and the video in high rotation on MTV, it would be easy to make a case that Prince ruled the music scene.

I was living in New York City and had heard of Prince a few years earlier when a musician pal of mine saw his first-ever (I’m assuming) NYC show in a small venue near the East Village. My friend’s after show review raved about his music and performance, while not sparing any descriptive shock value about Prince hitting the stage wearing women’s stockings, garters and high-heels.

He sounded like a combination of Jimi Hendrix and The New York Dolls.

Purple Rain was a huge hit in NYC – even outside of the East Village. But for some reason, possibly to avoid the long lines and crowded theaters, my girlfriend (at the time) and I never made an effort to see it.

In the theater anyway…

When you live in NYC things just seem to happen. Of course, I have tons of stories that I can refer to as life adventures to back up that boast, but not all of them could be called legit.

What do I mean by that?

Reigning Purple

I consider myself to be a pretty honest guy. Okay, I’ll admit to some minor discretions over the years, but nothing too crazy. In fact, I can’t even think of anything at the moment that can be called really bad, other than having a fake ID to buy beer when I was underage. Oh wait… There was a situation when two girls I was dating at the same time sat next to each other in the NYC restaurant I was managing and started comparing notes about their “boyfriend.”

That wasn’t a fun life adventure – and that’s a legit statement.

As mentioned, my girlfriend (and the only one at the time – I swear) and I didn’t make it to a theater to see Purple Rain when it came out in July 1984. But we still saw it that summer. It just so happened the head chef in the restaurant where I had played the failed version of The Dating Game loaned us a videotape of the film.

I know ignorance of the law is no excuse, but we didn’t think there was anything non-legit about watching a VHS tape of a movie WHILE the movie was still in theaters. Maybe that fact should’ve set off an alarm, but it failed to ring in either of our heads as we settled on the couch in our apartment to watch Purple Rain – even while fans were still lining up outside first-run theaters to view the same flick.

————————————————————————

Three of the wildest concerts in Beatles – and rock & roll – history!

The Beatles At Shea Stadium:

The Story Behind Their Greatest Concert

+

The Beatles In Cleveland:

Memories, Facts & Photos About The Notorious 1964 & 1966 Concerts

*

Both books available in paperback and eBook through Amazon.com

For information about Dave’s author programs visit BeatlesProgram.com

————————————————————————

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until part way through the film someone stood up. What made it noticeable was that this action didn’t occur as a scene featuring Prince or any other cast members within the movie. Instead, it was someone in a theater getting out of his seat, moving to the end of a row and walking up an aisle until he disappeared from our television screen.

In other words, we were watching a bootlegged version of Purple Rain that some crook had filmed with a handheld camera from the back of a movie theater. It was copied onto VHS tapes and hustled on the streets of New York City, along with other first run films. This was a common practice for bootleggers and money-grabbers that we saw all the time, but never considered buying anything from them.

Obviously, our restaurant chef felt differently. He soon learned a lesson in NYC street smarts…

Flying Doves

But first, When Doves Cry became morning smarts by joining this Dream Song list on October 24th. As a huge Prince fan, it’s a no-brainer to confess I own a copy and had just heard it – which makes it a legit member of the recent memory category.

Sometime after Purple Rain had finished its theater run and probably just getting ready to come out on legit VHS tapes, I was working behind the bar of the same NYC restaurant while the same bootleg-loaning chef and his crew closed the kitchen. It was around one o’clock in the morning and though we were done feeding our patrons, the drinks could flow – legitimately – for another three hours.

As usual, a few of my buddies were hanging around trying to scam me into giving them free drinks and we all yelled “Goodnight” to the kitchen gang as they walked out the front door and headed down Third Avenue.

About twenty minutes later the chef came back into the restaurant. He was out of breath from walking fast and carrying a big box advertising a video camcorder inside.

This was a large and expensive piece of equipment in the 1984 VHS era and we all knew it. In fact, I don’t remember anyone in our tight group of friends actually having enough money to afford a video camera – especially the pals that couldn’t scam me for free drinks.

And speaking of scams…

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Our on-the-street-shopping, bootleg-buying chef also knew this was a high priced item and was all excited to brag about buying it only a couple blocks away for the cheap, under-the-table price of $50 in cash. He placed the box on top of the bar, ran back to the kitchen for a knife to cut away the plastic wrapping and told us about the guys selling these “hot” cameras from the trunk of a car. He knew there was nothing legit about the transaction but didn’t seem to care since he was now the proud owner of a camcorder he couldn’t wait to unpack and show us.

The first clue something was wrong happened almost immediately.

Once he cut through the plastic, images of the valuable camcorder that should have been part of the packaging fell off with the wrapping, leaving a plain, brown cardboard box. I can still hear his gasp and the half-laughs from my buddies around the bar watching this major unveiling. He ripped through tape sealing the top of the box, pulled out a pile of crumbled-up newspapers, reached in and pulled out…

Another brick in the wall

A brick.

Yeah, just like you would use to build a house or a brick driveway. Cursing, he ran out of the restaurant to “get these guys,” but as can be predicted, they were long gone – with his fifty bucks – and probably in search of more customers with not-so-street smarts.

Okay, to be honest (legit) I don’t remember When Doves Cry being a soundtrack for this particular life (learning) adventure. But when I think of the song, I think of the movie. And when I think of the movie, I think of the bootleg film. And when I think of the bootleg film, I think of the chef. And when I think of the chef…

Well actually, I don’t need to think of the chef. I can pretty much look at any brick house and be reminded of my own street smarts. Never buy unless it’s legit.

Have a comment? Please use the form below.

Thanks for reading – and keep rockin’!

Here’s the video of When Doves Fly that should remind Prince fans when MTV was truly Music Television.

 

 

To purchase the Purple Rain soundtrack with When Doves Fly visit Amazon.com

——————————————————————————–

Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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#155 – On The Road Again

#155 – On The Road Again by Willie Nelson

– My wife Cowgirl Debbie and I are sitting next to each other at a table on Willie Nelson’s tour bus. Yeah, that’s pretty cool in itself. But to make the scene even cooler, sitting across from us is Willie Nelson himself. I’m kind’a fumbling around for something to say that will keep him interested in our conversation. I hit on something, his face lights up and Cowgirl Debbie says…

Okay, now that I might have you somewhat interested, we’ll go back a couple decades before continuing with this scene.

In the late 1970’s I had a pretty cool apartment in New York City. I’ve talked about it before in these Classic Rocker ramblings, but to be brief it was in the Gramercy Park neighborhood, had three levels and a small terrace. For NYC it was living in style. However, since I was still basically a just-graduated college student trying to figure out what I was going to be when I grew up, most of my funds went into paying rent.

The furnishings consisted of whatever my parents didn’t want anymore and how much of it I could stuff into a station wagon for my move from Ohio.

My first big splurge of spending money for pure enjoyment was a subscription for Manhattan Cable Television. It’s now sort of a laughable starving artist memory since the only television I had was another parental castoff small enough to be balanced on my stomach while lying in bed. It also scores high on the memorabilia meter since it can be described by another castoff term – black and white.

As Ralph Kramden often said in a black and white sitcom classic called The Honeymooners: I was living in the lap of luxury. And as another piece of memorabilia for dedicated NYC television viewing veterans from the era, that show was aired every weeknight at 11 pm on Channel 11.

I know, because I watched.

HBO’s Finest!

With my cable television subscription, which included an extra length of cable in case I wanted to put the television on a table next to the bed instead of on my stomach, came a relatively new network called Home Box Office (HBO). This was revolutionary since movies and special features (comedy and music concerts come to mind) were broadcast without any commercials.

Hey, if they could land a man on the moon only a decade earlier, why stop there? Commercial free paid television was the next logical step.

After a few years of progressively improving personal finances I eventually had a color television in the living room with added cable networks like MTV, ESPN and Cinemax. But HBO was still the go-to for watching movies if you didn’t feel like heading out to a theater and paying an exorbitant seven dollar ticket price for a first-run feature.

But HBO didn’t seem to have an exorbitant amount of feature films at that time. In other words, they seemed to air the same movies over and over and over…

But that was okay if the movie was really good or – even better – if it was really bad. The frequently run HBO classics that immediately come to mind during the early 1980’s fitting both requirements were Can’t Stop The Music with The Village People (and Bruce Jenner!), Thank God It’s Friday with Donna Summer and Honeysuckle Rose starring Willie Nelson.

Yeah, there were others. But this trio of music flicks were aired so often during my insomniac late nights they’ve been burned into my lasting memory.

————————————————————————

Two of the wildest concerts in Beatles – and rock – history!

The Beatles In Cleveland:

Memories, Facts & Photos About The Notorious 1964 & 1966 Concerts

Available in paperback and eBook through Amazon.com

For information about Dave’s author programs visit BeatlesProgram.com

————————————————————————

Speaking of memory, On The Road Again joined the subliminal category of this Dream Song list on October 21st. There’s no other explanation for its inclusion other than my burned-in memory since I don’t own a copy and probably haven’t heard it since we saw Willie Nelson in person the evening we sat with him on his tour bus.

To connect all the dots between the movie memories and our in person Willie Nelson experience…

Real life Honeysuckle Rose

On The Road Again was the Academy Award nominated theme song written by Nelson for his 1980 movie Honeysuckle Rose that seemed to be on HBO over and over and over… And of course, the title of the movie was also the name of his tour bus both in the movie and real life.

Got that? Okay, then one final classic movie note…

Not only was Willie Nelson the romantic lead in this “on the road” country-music-flavored film, but his co-star was one of my favorite American actors, Slim Pickens. Yeah, I know, a quirky choice on my part. But he made my personal all-star list with roles in the films Dr. Strangelove (riding on an atomic bomb into glory), Blazing Saddles and 1941. After playing these burnt-into-my-mind roles, I found it a bit unreal to watch ol’ Slim as a guitar player in Willie’s band, which is probably another reason I found it impossible to switch on a different cable channel whenever the film came on HBO during another late night round of sleepless viewing.

Two decades later, in 2002 to be exact, I wasn’t quite grown up yet (I’m still working on that) but was doing something I could’ve never dreamed or predicted when I made the long ago decision to splurge on Manhattan Cable Television. I was writing a weekly country music column for a newspaper in northern Ohio. Again, I’ve mentioned this in past Classic Rockers and how it gave me a fresh outlook on music I hadn’t paid much attention to previously.

Press Pass

It also brought me face to face with the country legend and star of Honeysuckle Rose on his tour bus. And though I’m not sure his 2002 updated traveling home shared the same name, I’ll go ahead and say it did just to keep you somewhat interested.

With two review tickets for Nelson’s July 22nd concert in Cleveland and a confirmed post-show interview, Cowgirl Debbie and I were psyched for a somewhat interesting evening. Debbie’s reason was based on her being a big country music fan (hence the name) and me because…

Well, come-on. I’m sure you’d also think it’s pretty cool to meet Willie Nelson.

Willie and his band played all his classic hits, but I somehow felt disappointed Slim Pickens wasn’t standing next to him playing guitar. On a sad note, Slim passed away almost two decades before in 1983. On a techno-psychological note, that shows the lasting power of cable television on the human brain.

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After Willie walked off stage following an encore or two, we flashed our media passes at a security guard and were escorted behind the outdoor venue to a closed off parking area and a large bus. Another guard stood outside protecting the open door.

After checking our passes, he told us to go inside and have a seat.

Willie’s living room

The front section of the bus was a living room that included a table with booth seating big enough for four people to have dinner or a card game. Then there was a closed door dividing what I assumed were private sleeping quarters in the back. The decor (if I remember correctly) included wood paneling and dark red curtains over the bus windows.

After just a few minutes the closed door opened. Willie Nelson walked in, said hello and sat at the table with us.

Doing my best Ralph Kramden impression from The Honeymooners, I probably started my newspaper interview with, “Homina, homina, homina…” BTW – veteran Honeymooners fans will know exactly what I’m referring to.

But as I should have expected, Willie Nelson was very cool. Soon we were talking about the concert, his tour, music and… well, it could have been somewhat more exciting than that. It was obvious to both of us I was asking – and he was answering – questions he’d heard countless times before.

So I went with something else:

“What would you have done if music didn’t work out?”

Willie looked at me, smiled and said, “I’d like to be a professional golfer.”

Willie Nelson & The Classic Rocker

That takes us back to the beginning of this epic rambling story. Cowgirl Debbie, who had been uncharacteristically quiet (trust me on that) up to this point, saw his face light up and said…

“On what? The Senior Circuit?“

Okay, obviously Willie didn’t look like a teenager – even back in the days of filming Honeysuckle Rose. But Cowgirl Debbie’s remark was like a sucker punch to his funny bone. Willie started laughing and might have pretended to be offended by her age-related joke. But it didn’t matter since the timing, delivery and his reaction had all three of us cracking up.

After that ice-breaker the rest of the interview goes down in my memory as fun time. Willie was a genuine nice guy with a great sense of humor. And I’m sure if we had asked, he would’ve let us ride on Honeysuckle Rose with him to the next tour stop.

Okay, probably not. But the idea of us on the road (again?) with Willie Nelson might have kept you somewhat interested enough to read this far.

Have a comment? Please use the form below.

Thanks for reading – and keep rockin’!

Here’s a 1983 video of Willie Nelson performing On The Road Again.

To purchase

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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#156 – Smoke on the Water

#156 – Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple

Deep Purple

– Two decades after this song came out Nirvana was grunge-ing about Smells Like Teen Spirit. But for boomers that frequented college parties and dance clubs when Smoke on the Water was released as a single in May 1973, after first appearing on the Deep Purple album Machine Head in early 1972, your sense memories should be drenched in teenage sweat at just the thought of one of the best known guitar riffs in rock, heavy metal and now, classic rock.

And like all great rock guitar riffs, you know exactly what song is playing after only the first couple notes. Chances are good you’ll also remember immediately jumping out of your seat and bouncing onto a dance floor whenever every local rock band cranked this one up to the max volume.

How am I so sure of that? Because that’s how I remember it.

I really don’t know what Nirvana was shouting about in the classic grunge-rocker from the 1990’s, but their song title fits what my sense memories recall from the pre-disco music scene in the 1970’s. I doubt there was any local rock band that didn’t have Smoke on the Water included in their repertoire – along with Roundabout by Yes.

And though I won’t earn any new classic rock fans and will probably lose a few by saying this, I remember both being way overplayed.

Did I just say that – really? Yeah, I did.

Blurred by 3.2% beer?

For a couple of years anyway, Smoke on the Water and Roundabout were guaranteed party-starters. The first notes of either song would cause a stampede of late teens and early twenty-somethings to abandon their “legal at age eighteen” 3.2 percent (alcohol) beers and jump around on a dance floor until the sweat of teen spirit was added to the already thick aroma of brew and smoke (as in cigarettes, which any twelve year old could buy at the time). These songs were such a sure thing to get everyone up and rocking we heard them so often I seriously can’t remember ever wanting to hear either again after we were done with the 1970’s.

That’s why Smoke on the Water joins this Dream Song list as a subliminal member. I hadn’t heard it in a long time, I’ve never owned a copy – and have no desire to change that. When the opening notes jolted me awake on October 15th I must have been unconsciously dancing under the covers since I was breaking into a sweat. I can only assume I was having a dream influenced by long ago teen spirit memories and was back on a dance floor jumping around like a college student powered by watered down beer on the last day of final exams.

Now, if you’ve followed these Classic Rocker ramblings you know I can’t leave you with just a general vague description of hearing Smoke on the Water at every music club we went to. There is one specific memory that jumps into my mind when hearing the opening notes…

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A few weeks after a bad breakup with a long time girlfriend (is there such a thing as a good breakup?) I escorted a new girlfriend to one of our local live music clubs. It was big place and typically crowded for a Saturday night. So of course, the first person I spotted was my “ex” hanging out with her pack of loyal girlfriends. With experienced knowledge you can’t learn in a college classroom, I immediately steered the new girlfriend to the opposite side of the club and found an empty table.

After ordering a couple 3.2% beers we suddenly had company.

To take the suspense out of this sense memory, it wasn’t the “ex” dropping by to say hello or put her cigarette out on my arm. Instead it was two of her friends that had obviously been given an assignment in espionage. Their mission (and they chose to accept it) was to scope out what the heck I was doing with this new girl and to gather any information and perhaps incriminating evidence that I may have been seeing her before the bad breakup with their friend.

Yeah, real teen spirit stuff.

They were on a mission!

Of course I hadn’t talked with the “ex” friends in what seemed like forever, but suddenly they acted like we were all new friends. Over whatever loud early 70’s rock the band was playing, we verbally danced over the obvious, “How are you?” “What have you been up to?” and more specifically, “Who’s your friend?” interrogation that was both awkward and annoying. But the new girlfriend and I handled situation like a team from Mission Impossible (the television series, since we were still decades away from the movies) with fake smiles, polite answers and another round of 3.2% beer.

Then Smoke on the Water came to the rescue.

When the local band hit the first few notes the current girlfriend grabbed my hand and gave me a look as if we’d been granted parole. I called out a (polite) “See’ya later!” and made a beeline onto the dance floor.

End of conversation.

After a lengthy version of Smoke on the Water that was most likely followed by the band’s cover of Roundabout, I suggested we go to another (probably hyped by me as better) club and we split the scene. I’m tempted to add I could feel a few sets of teen spirited eyes trying to burn a hole in the back of my head as we made for the exit, but that would only be speculation on my part. Where there’s no smoke (on or off the water) there’s no fire.

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Eventually the “new” became an “ex” and the first “ex” became a friend. Yeah, I know. It’s complicated. But in the teen spirit of the 1970’s, we all kept dancing – just with different partners in different places. But if I can assume at least one thing stayed the same after going our separate ways, it would be wherever we were and whatever local band was playing, we’d join the stampede onto a dance floor as soon as we heard the opening notes to Smoke on the Water.

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Thanks for reading – and keep rockin’!

Here’s a 1972 video of Deep Purple performing Smoke on the Water

To purchase The Very Best of Deep Purple with Smoke on the Water visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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#157 – All By Myself

#157 – All By Myself by Eric Carmen

 – It was never a definite thing, or as we would’ve referred to it in college as a lock. There were no promises or guarantees made, but if the planets aligned in a positive way there might be a very slight chance I could meet a Beatle.

Okay, I didn’t. But for this Classic Rocker it still turned out to be a pretty cool experience. Here’s the scoop – and yeah, I mean that with ink-stained, newspaper lingo.

In 2000 I was writing entertainment columns for a newspaper in northern Ohio. It wasn’t the big one in Cleveland, The Plain Dealer, but it still came with decent-enough credentials to score interviews and concert review tickets for most of the music and comedy shows I wanted to see. But there was one road block when it came to the music I really enjoyed. I wasn’t the official the pop-rock journalist, since that was how another writer earned his paycheck. I was the assigned country music expert, even though I knew nothing about real country music before accepting the gig.

What do I mean by real country music?

I’m talking about the original artists out of Nashville, Bakersfield and other locales south of my northern locale. When it came to my personal country playlists, they were limited to most of the tracks Ringo was assigned on Beatles albums and the occasional Rolling Stones efforts at twang on songs like Wild Horses and Far Away Eyes.

But I gained an appreciation while reviewing concerts and interviewing Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks, Tanya Tucker and quite a few others. And as a bonus, my country column also allowed me to hang out backstage one night with The Everly Brothers since the newspaper’s too-young, pop-rock reporter wasn’t classic rock savvy enough to realize Don and Phil were rock star royalty.

That was also a pretty cool scoop on my part.

I’d always feel a bit like a lottery winner whenever my writer colleague’s personal opinion that classic rock wasn’t really happening worked to my advantage. That’s also how I scored review seats for Paul McCartney and an invitation to a private rehearsal by The Monkees.

Ringo + All Starr Band 2000

I had a system going within my local newspaper gig when it came to classic rock and I played it like an all star.

So, I was more than psyched to learn Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band would be playing in Cleveland that summer. A quick call to my editor confirmed our pop-rock guy had no interest and I started polishing up my media pass for the concert.

I grabbed a press release sent to the newspaper and immediately called Ringo’s publicist. I was politely told I would be sent review tickets, but the former Beatle would only do one newspaper interview in each city. Cleveland’s belonged to The Plain Dealer’s legendary journalist (and my friend) Jane Scott.

Okay… so one win and one loss. I could live with that.

But then came a big score I didn’t see coming. The publicist told me one of the All Starr’s had a north coast connection and asked if I would be interested in doing a phone interview with Eric Carmen.

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Are you kidding me? My answer to that question was easier than the lock I’d had once on a college exam when the teaching grad student gave me the answers in advance.

Sign me up!

Let’s get this out of the way right now. I’m a major Eric Carmen fan as both a solo artist and member of The Raspberries. I can attribute this to a few things. I grew up near the band’s launching pad of Cleveland and even though I’ve never met any of the members, it almost feels like I know these guys. The nucleus of the group (without Carmen) were well-known throughout the area as The Mods, then after changing their name to The Choir scored a hit song in 1966 with It’s Cold Outside.

It was one of the songs that always brought together the guys and the girls from opposite sides of the school gym to dance during our junior high dances. And yeah, I have a copy on my digital playlist.

The Choir + Eric Carmen

Eric Carmen was in another area band in the early 70’s called Cyrus Erie. By this time, we were in high school and old enough to drive. That also meant we were old enough to hang out in teen dance clubs. I remember seeing them in a club west of Cleveland that was also called Cyrus Erie, but with an added tag of “West” to separate it from a same-named club on the east side.

Another memory of that long-ago night in Cyrus Erie West was when a cute girl with a flower painted on her cheek asked me to dance. And to really show off my memory, she said her name was Sunshine. I mean, really – how could any sixteen year old guy ever forget that?

The Choir and Cyrus Erie somehow merged, resulting in The Raspberries and international fame. Their brand of power-pop music was the needed alternative to (in my opinion) a rock scene that was getting too stuck in alternative music.

I seriously could not listen to twenty minute drum solos, over-long guitar improvisations or some guy blowing on a flute. Give me two to three minutes of rock and roll and I’m happy. And I know my college frat house pals would agree since our parties with sorority girls would’ve never been the wild times we still reminisce about if we hadn’t had everybody on their feet and dancing to Go All The Way, Tonight and I Want To Be With You.

Eric Carmen – The Choir

Then sometime during my college daze The Raspberries broke up. But my fandom was saved when Eric Carmen released his self-titled solo album that opened with All By Myself. It was one of the rare LP’s I could listen to all the way through without picking up the stereo needle and skipping any songs. It was also the go-to soundtrack at the end of our college parties with sororities when the lights were low…

All By Myself was also a go-to for my waking mind when it joined this Dream Song list on the morning of September 27. Of course I own a copy (duh), but surprisingly hadn’t heard it in awhile. I must have been rocking to The Raspberries or It’s Cold Outside that week instead. So for that reason, welcome to the subliminal memory category.

My phone interview with Eric Carmen to promote the Ringo and his All-Starr Band concert was scheduled and confirmed. I was psyched. Maybe a little too much…

I wish I could say the interview was one of my stellar moments as a music journalist, but that’s not how I remember it. I had done quite a few interviews previously with artists I consider to be heavyweights in the entertainment biz, but with Eric Carmen I very quickly morphed into fan-boy.

Remember the Saturday Night Live bit where Chris Farley interviewed Paul McCartney? All he did was tell the pre-Sir Paul how great he was and asked if he remembered all these great things he had done. If you don’t, here’s a reminder…

 

 

It was just like me talking to Eric Carmen.

Okay, maybe it turned out to be a bit more than that. I reminisced about everything mentioned above, including Cyrus Erie, The Raspberries, my college parties and his solo work. He was extremely polite and a nice guy, but all he really had to reply was, “Yes, I remember” and “Thank you.” Then I was onto my next memory.

Eventually we talked about the tour and performing with an ex-Beatle. So the article was salvaged and ran in the newspaper. I also saw a link to it on his website years ago, but in a recent search for this particular Classic Rocker rambling I couldn’t find it online.

It’s probably just as well – at lease for my journalistic reputation.

At the end of our talk I mentioned that my review tickets usually included a pass to go backstage after the concert. If it was cool, I’d like to say hello. He said that would be fine and if there was an opportunity, he might be able to introduce me to Ringo Starr.

Say what?! Call me fan-boy x2 and sign me up!

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The outdoor All-Starr concert was a major blast from the past with Carmen performing All By Myself and Go All The Way and Ringo singing his fab-twang classics. After the encore I temporarily ditched my wife Dancin’ Deb and our friends for a possible rendezvous with my hoped-for new best friends Eric and Ringo backstage.

As mentioned at the beginning of this rambling fan-boy confession, it didn’t happen.

Alas (do people still use that term?), my newspaper and name wasn’t on the list and I couldn’t talk my way past the strong-armed security guard road-blocking the backstage entrance. I’m sure I stood looking longingly (do people still use that term?) as Jane Scott and other VIPs walked through the gate and joined the far away inner circle that I could only imagine included Ringo Starr and Eric Carmen.

But in the long run, I can still claim to have had a very cool experience.

I rejoined Dancin’ Deb and our friends to share reviews of our favorite moments from the show. And if my more recent memories are correct, we ditched playing a Ringo CD during our drive home and turned up Eric Carmen. That’s called hometown loyalty.

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Please use the form below – and keep rockin’!

Here’s a video of Eric Carmen performing All By Myself on The Midnight Special television show from the 1970’s. This is the complete song – and not the edited version released as a single for radio play.

 

 

To purchase the album Eric Carmen with All By Myself visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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#158 – Stay With Me

#158 – Stay With Me by Faces

Faces

– Summer heat and a packed stadium of wannabe boomer hippies morphing into mod rockers. Okay, maybe you won’t think it was as game-changing as I’m making it out to be, but let’s put it this way:

You had to be there.

Since The Classic Rocker is all (well, mostly) about memories this song brings back more than a few – including the scene mentioned above. Rod “The Mod” Stewart, future Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood, future Stones keyboard sideman Ian McLagan, future Keith Moon replacement in The Who, Kenney Jones, and original Small Faces bassist Ronnie Lane were throwing a booze-fueled rock and roll party on stage and everyone was invited.

And it was a needed party. At least that’s how I remember it.

This was happening in July 1972 following my first year in college and the country was going through a very heavy scene. We were hearing a lot of message songs on FM and campus radio not only about protesting the Vietnam War, but also serious odes to peace and love and coming together as a community. These were important topics for our generation and had been growing stronger since the late 1960’s.

In the Navy!

It especially hit home when my age of U.S. males became eligible for the military draft. With the end of student deferments and low draft lottery numbers (mine was #52 which was way too low for comfort), some of my college friends had no choice about their futures. You either went in or went on the run.

It was pretty serious stuff.

We still had rockers like The Who and Led Zeppelin blasted out future classics with attitude, but a lot of music was meant to be listened to. Acoustic guitar playing troubadours with flannel shirts and denim bellbottoms dragging on the floor were a popular sound and style. But as teenagers in the early 1970s some of us could only sit cross-legged around a stereo digging the heavy vibe for so long until feeling the need to cut loose.

The Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar had kicked off the summer of 1971 and offered us an alternate vibe. The message was sex and being wild – and if that’s not rock and roll someone needs to come up with a better definition. It had crunchy electric guitars, a heavy beat, a screaming saxophone from Bobby Keys and major attitude. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards weren’t going to waste their time or ours by standing around with acoustic guitars looking introspective and thoughtful.

As soon as the stereo needle hit the vinyl we were in a better place.

Faces also sang about rock’s main topics, backed by electric guitars, keyboards and a drum beat that made sitting cross-legged on the floor virtually impossible. And it was a heck of a lot of fun.

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Legendary as the ultimate ode to backstage groupies, Stay With Me by Faces – as opposed to “The” Faces, which would be like saying “The” Led Zeppelin – was a definite party-starter. The song closed the first side of their late 1971 album A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse and opened my eyes on September 26th as a recent memory. It’s one of my all-time favorite rock songs (along with Brown Sugar) and rarely off my digital playlists for any great length of time. In other words, I had just heard it.

So, what did I mean earlier about morphing from wannabe hippies to mod rockers? It all started on July 3, 1972…

As a nineteen year old U.S. male home from college with the second year riding on the results of an upcoming U.S. military draft physical, I was doing my best to emulate the Woodstock culture of the boomers a few years earlier. The style included hair to my shoulders, a faded t-shirt and faded denim bellbottoms long and wide enough to drag on the floor. My three best pals were also clones of the look as we took off in a beater car for a major rock concert experience at the Akron (Ohio) Rubber Bowl featuring Cactus, Badfinger and the main attraction, Faces.

When we arrived, the stadium was already packed with like-minded hippie wannabes. But for some reason we felt brave enough (stupid enough?) to wade our way through the crowd sitting cross-legged close to the stage. When we reached a space that gave us a great view, we sat. Seriously – we just sat down, practically on top of the fans who were already there. I remember some teenage girls and guys giving us the evil eye and saying something about our arrogance (stupidity?) but it worked out. We were basically good guys and actually funny enough to resemble a hippie comedy team.

It didn’t take very long before we were making friends and they let us settle in for the show.

Come to think of it, we probably made these fast friends because one of my pals had hid a bottle under his shirt and was free in passing it around. Combined with the 3.2 percent beer we were allowed to buy from venders at the legal age of eighteen, everyone seemed pretty friendly and the atmosphere could be described as party central.

Badfinger

Except for being a hot, humid day in July with more dirt and dust than grass covering the stadium’s pre-Astroturf college football field, I don’t have any highlights of the opening acts to share. I don’t remember any of us being into Cactus. They might have been part of the country-rock scene out of California, which we weren’t into at the time. I was psyched about seeing Badfinger since they were a Beatles-related Apple band, but they were a bit of a disappointment. I have a memory of one or two of them sitting on stools while playing the hits we wanted to hear. Not exactly the rock and roll energy we expected.

Faces fronted by Rod Stewart were the complete opposite.

They rock and rolled, pranced and posed and made no secret they had a party central happening on stage. We were close enough to see bottles of booze on the amplifiers and they took healthy swigs before, during and after songs. I’m not sure if Stay With Me was the closing number, but I like to think it was. As a dedicated soccer fan, Rod kicked soccer balls into the crowd and at one point either he – or it might have been Ron Wood – landed on his butt after an especially energetic and booze-fueled kick.

We roared our approval.

But what did I mean about a change from wannabe hippies into mod rockers?

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Faces were far from being flannel shirt and denim rockers. They were decked out in brightly colored slim-fitting, wide lapel jackets, flashy shirts, bellbottoms and high-heeled shoes. There’s no way these guys would’ve felt comfortable walking through the mud at Woodstock or showing up for a military draft physical.

They were traveling in style. Which is something I started to do within a few weeks of the concert.

My goal was to fashion myself like Rod and the band with what I can only call a “rock and roll jacket.” It had to be slim fitting with wide lapels, which turned out not to be as easy to find in northern Ohio as it must have been in London.

Not as cool as this!!

After hours of driving with my concert-going buddy Gary to every clothes store we could find near and far from Cleveland, we finally wound up back in Akron at a then-known but now-gone 1970’s fashion trendsetter clothes store called Chess King (as opposed to “The” Chess King). A mod-rocker sales dude pulled out a jacket in my (tight) size and I reached for my wallet.

And even though muddy brown sugar would never be called a flashy color by Faces or London fashionistas, I proudly wore it to add mod to my rocker status.

To end this Classic Rocker rambling in a way I feel is even more dramatic than landing on my butt after an energetic and booze-filled soccer ball kick into a standing room only stadium crowd of boomer, mod-rockers, the military draft fizzled out only months before my lottery number was scheduled to be inducted. That meant the rock and roll jacket would be my main uniform during a second year of college.

That also signaled another needed party – and I’m sure I wore my jacket. And even though it didn’t inspire the Rod Stewart solo-hit, in my teenaged mind I probably thought it: You wear it well.

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Here’s a live video of Faces performing Stay With Me looking like 1972 rock and rollers!

 

 

To purchase A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse visit Amazon.com.

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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