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From Head to Toe: Rock’s Ultimate Rock Star, Colorforms Style!

Sep 302009

Remember Colorforms? Following a comprehensive 5-minute search of the Internet I have determined that the Colorforms company, although producing sets specifically for iconic artists like The Beatles, KISS, and Elvis Presley, did not produce a comprehensive set of Colorforms that would have allowed us, as children, to create our own vision of the Ultimate Rock Star. Well, maybe they did, but if they did I’m sure it wasn’t as good as the Colorforms set we’re about to create.

As a service to help soothe yet one more dashed rock ‘n roll dream, Rock Town Hall will be partnering with Colorforms to create the Rock Town Hall Kit, a Colorforms toy. This set will include, from head to toe, the most iconic elements of rock wardrobe and accoutrements for future generations to mix and match onto blank figures in the effort of creating the Ultimate Rock Star.

Now the hard part… Read on!
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They Don’t Make ’em Like That Anymore…For Better or For Worse?

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Sep 162009

Check out this 1981 performance by Kevin Ayers and John Cale. They don’t make ’em like that anymore, do they?

What I’d like to discuss is whether, aside from your personal musical tastes, this is a good or a bad thing. In other words, have any useful rock building blocks been abandoned along with this particular style of music and performance? In other words, have we thrown the baby out with the bathwater?

Has Any Rocker Gotten More Mileage Out of His or Her Hair Than Brian Jones?

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Sep 012009

“We must find the killer of those silken locks!”

There’s no hidden objective in this question: has any rocker gotten more mileage out of his or her hair than Brian Jones? Forty years after his death London police are reopening the case surrounding what had originally been ruled an accidental drug overdose. From the little I’ve gleaned in various reports on these new developments, this has something to do with a supposed confession by a gardener on his deathbed about 16 years ago! I guess news travels slow in the gardening community. I mean no disrespect to Jones’ legacy of cool and his 40-plus illegitimate adult children, but how many cases of non-singing or -songwriting rhythm guitar player deaths by accidental overdose would be reopened 40 years after the fact if not for those silken locks?

You know I love Brian Jones and the era of the Stones that featured his propulsive rhythm playing and, yes, his hair. However, is there anything to suggest that he was some great cat, some humanitarian whose life was cut short? Is there anything to suggest that his work with the Master Musicians of Joujouka was about to turn the rock world on its ear? I think not. I’m not saying that his death should not be judged fairly, even 40 years after the fact, but thank god for that head of hair! In a field crowded with follicularly blessed participants, I’m stumped to find another rocker whose legacy is so rooted, if you’ll excuse the pun, in his or her hair.

Rock’s Most Troubling Looks

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Jul 122009

When I asked myself which rockers possess rock’s most troubling Look, the first three that came to mind were Phil Lynott, Sam Phillips (of Sun Records), and Tom Petty. I see these cats and want to reach over and show them what they’re doing wrong.

Phil Lynott: Something’s gotta give.

Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott has long been dead, but his Look continues to trouble me. Something’s gotta give, be it the part in his Afro, the mustache, or the leather jumpsuits. His issues with Bat Wing Syndrome and his death notwithstanding, Lynott’s the first rocker I’d like to breakdown in front of a miror and recast in a less-sleazy, more powerful presence. Troubling.
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Rock’s Questionable Fashion Choices: The Hat

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Jun 222009

Early Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band may be among the the only rock musicians in to make the hat work for them on stage and in publicity shots. The Specials are the only other band that come to mind from the highly scientific top of my head. Am I missing someone obvious? Most of the hat-wearing rock musicans I can think of look silly: all those truck driver chic sorts from Brooklyn and other non-farming communities in high-resting John Deer caps; anyone who’s tried rocking a baseball cap on stage; rockers in cowboy hats (which work quite well on actual country musicians); the guy from Modest Mouse in his G.I. Joe cap… The beret is inherently silly looking, so Dr. John and Mink DeVille look as silly as anyone else who’s ever worn a beret.

With the hat’s rich tradition in blues, country, soul, jazz, and other building blocks of rock ‘n roll, it’s a wonder the hat hasn’t fared better in rock. For a rock musician to look good in a hat, is it necessary that the musician is playing a hat-appropriate form of rock ‘n roll, such as ska or horn-fueled R&B-based rock? Note how the E Street Band dropped the hats once they moved past their early horn-fueled era.

As a side thought, is it a coincidence that country music’s most rock-friendly musician, Johnny Cash, didn’t wear a hat?

Alanis Morissette, Are You Kidding Me?

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Jun 052009

I’m fascinated by Alanis Morissette – and my fascination grows as the years pass and I continue to stumble across her latest televised performances. The people in the audience are either paid extras or people who are beginning to think of the ’90s as the best years of their lives, but who, beside me – ironically – is tuning into a live performance by Alanis Morissette these days? Just the other night I saw her on Palladia, a high-def, all-concert performance channel that’s part of the MTV/VH1 family.

I don’t know the vintage of this performance that I caught, but it must have been from the last couple of years. She had a different hairdo than I’ve been used to seeing, something almost like the shag worn by Carol Brady. It was kind of cute. She’s kind of cute in the way some woman in everyday life, maybe working down the hallway, is kind of cute. Some of you are bound to find fault with her prominent jawline or the lengths she goes to in strategically covering what seems to be a decent but probably flawed body, but have you ever taken a good look at yourself in the mirror?

How Would You Describe Modern-Day Rock Hairdos?

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Apr 142009

A range of mid-60s rock hairdos.

As a young boy in the late-60s/early-70s, I could have described then-fashionable rock hairdos. All you had to do was look at a half dozen popular groups shots on albums covers and in magazines.

Unmistakably the Disco strain of late-70s hairdos.

Later in the ’70s, it was just as easy, and we could clearly trace the divide between Rockin’ late-70s hair and feathered Disco-influenced hair.

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