Rock n Roll History @colinstaudt-blog - Tumblr Blog

The Sex Pistols were a top band in the 70s punk rock. The band manager, Malcolm McLaren, saw the New York Dolls in America and loved the what they were doing. He went back to the UK and formed a band off that. Punk rock was backward looking whereas progressive rock was forward looking. Early punk rock in the 70s sounded like sped up blues music from the 50s. Punk rock was more about spirit than quality.

Guitarist Jimmy Page, recording engineer George Chkiantz and final-mix engineer Eddie Kramer on vocalist Robert Plant's vocals and everything else behind the making of the 1968 classic "Whole Lotta Love"

This article gives a great description of how”Whole Lotto Love” was written. Jimmy Page and some recording engineers explain their roles in creating the song. This song reached number 4 when it was released in October of 1968 on the Led Zeppelin II. This was their second album, and it battled with the Beatles’ Abbey Road for the number one spot over three months.

The Rolling Stones got their first No. 1, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, in July 1965.

“Satisfaction” is the Rolling Stones first number one hit in 1965. The guitar part came to Keith Richards in a dream. He woke up in the middle of the night and “put it on a tape. Mick Jagger wrote the lyrics in 10 minutes while sitting by a hotel pool. He was inspired by Muddy Waters’ “I Can’t be Satisfied.”

The Beatles, “From me to you” was one of their first hits, and they performed it on “Royal Variety show” in 1963. This was the first time a pop band played in front of the queen. This song represents the early Beatles who played more so to sell records. The song has more superficial, girl meets up with boy love lyrics. The hints of surf rock, high vocals, and Doo Wop in the song showed that it had an American influence throughout it. This song introduced the Beatles popularity, and it expressed the romantic lyrical culture of the early 1960s.

You know that it would be untrue You know that I would be a liar If I was to say to you Girl, we

The Doors released their debut album on the first week in January 1967. They released “Light my fire” as a single in April. The song spent three weeks as number one on the billboard charts.

Janis Joplin was a lead women singer in the later 1960s. She had a raspy voice and wailing style as she sang with blues and folk music influences. She struggled with drug addiction, alcoholism, and volatile relationships. Me and Bobby McGee became a number one single in 1971 after her death from overdosing on heroin.

Check out our album review of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon on Rolling Stone.com.

This album was not made up of a bunch of songs but was instead an extended version of one song with different concepts. It was a concept album. Pink Floyd’s creative use of different instruments and other experimental features makes it one of the top bands of the era that represents psychedelic rock and progressive rock.

San Francisco Radio

Experimental independent radio stations in the lower AM stations and then starting in FM would sometimes play an entire album. This is much different than mainstream stations who would play a couple hits from different musicians.

Ginsberg’s Howl vs. Parker‘s Koko

In Howl, Ginsberg uses pauses at the end of phrases. He never repeats what he says. He just rambles on. This is similar to Parker’s Koko as he doesn’t repeat the same melody but continues to freestyle on with different melodies. He also pauses quickly before starting the next melody. Both of these go against the tyical song or speech of having a chorus or some repetition.

This article gives a detailed overview of the two albums and below are some main points. Rubber Soul and Revolver were very similar albums of the Beatles which represented the experimental time period in Rock ‘n’ Roll. They released Rubber Soul in December of 1965 and Revolver in August of 1966. Rubber Soul was a folk rock album which was a lot different than they earlier Rock ‘n’ Roll albums. Yellow Submarine and Eleanor Rigby were the top hits of the Revolver album. The lyrics in Rubber Soul and similarily in Revolver were much more thoughtful and ambiguous as they portrayed the negativity in relationships and other things. This largely differs from their upbeat romantic lyrics from before. The art of the Rubber Soul album further expresses the changing time. The Beatles would experiment with the recording equipment by speeding up, slowing down, or playing the song backwards.

“The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster”

This article sets the tone for what was involved and coming out of San Francisco in the 1960s. In the first part of the article, it talks about concentration camps and the atomic bomb. It reflects that peope are killed and not given dignity but are just a number dead. This further insinuates that free will can be ended with a simple decision to drop a bomb. This article supports individuality and to live how you want because at anytime there could be mass extinction. It further goes on to discuss that you are hip or square, meaning you are hip as you are against conformity or you are square and fueling it. The individuality expression was present in the diversity of the music Groups in San Francisco, an example is to compare the Grateful Dead to Janis Joplin.

from 20 feet from stardom shivering ....

Late at night, the Rolling Stones are constructing the song “Gimmie Shelter” and decide they need a women to sing the part “Rape, murder! It’s just a shot away.” Merry Clayton comes to the recording studio in her pajamas and sings with a lot of personality and emotion which is just what the song needed.

Gimme Shelter is the film I’ve seen more than any other. I guess you could say I was obsessed with it for a spell. I saw it first during its premiere New York run in late 1970. Back home in North Carolina shortly thereafter, I followed it . . .

Gimmie Shelter is noted to be one of the best rock n roll films ever made. It is a film about the Rolling Stones’s 1969 US tour and puts a stong emphasis on the Altamont concert. This film expresses the “unsteady relationship between art and morality.“

Unintentional influences by musicians on others

If you want peace and love, it would be better to sing about those things than to write music about the messed up things in the world. By writing about the problems in the world, we are spreading awareness but also giving energy to the thing that frustrates us. Although you can relate to music in dark and tough times in your life through certain lyrics, you are giving energy to those negative thoughts. Instead, sing about how the world should be and give energy to that. There needs to be a conscious balance between having empathy and supporting the ideas you want to become realized.

Pure entertainment with negative expressions is helping people move toward the temptations. When you have the popularity of Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Who, or the Beatles, you have an influence on so many people. Although your purpose may to be to entertain or not have a purpose at all, be careful what message you are sending out as it could lead to events unintended. Simply entertaining could end up having an impact on people that was not the bands intention. Although it is up to the individual to decide what thoughts they are going to pay attention to and how to respond to the music, the musicians should consider the possible effects that their entertainment may have on their listeners.

In the fall of 1969, I landed the coolest possible writing gig: touring with the Rolling Stones on assignment from the New York Times (the Times rejected the hundred-page piece I turned in, but radical Ramparts printed it). The tour across . . .

When you tangle with the devil, searching for meaning while using drugs and having sex, this does not lead to the peace and freedom that many of the hippies were looking for. They may be peaceful and free at certain times, but they also create problems for themselves. Altamont is basic example of the arise of chaos. Furthermore, you are not going to find meaning in your life by giving into the temptations of drugs, sex, and music about the devil. This is ends in self destruction. As musicians and listeners, be aware of what message and connotations the music and lyrics is giving off, watch taking it too seriously, and be careful of the path that the music’s influence could be leading you down.

Altamont Disaster

The Rolling Stones set up a massive concert with numerous bands playing in it. Around 300,000 people were there, but it was set up for disaster. Hells Angels were the security guards. There was not boundary between the stage and the people; so, people could easily rush the stage. There were not nearly enough toliets. Someone got knifed and died. They had to stop the concert several times. This shows that you can’t just set up a venue and think everything will be alright. This is wishful thinking. There needs to be structure and planning in order to have a successful event.

My great uncle used to turn off the volume to the Who and just watch them perform. Now, I can see why he did this. Although this video doesn’t show them destroying the stage too much, they would bash guitars, destroy amplifiers, and wreck drum sets. Each member is fun to watch. John’s fast fingers on the bass, Keith beating on the drums with headphones taped to his head, Roger twirling the microphone, and Pete’s dynamic movements on the guitar.

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