style

Rock’s Unfulfilled Fashion Ideas: The Sleeveless Shirt

Jul 192011

Et tu, Eddie?

Has any rocker ever made music of merit wearing a sleeveless shirt? Not while making music bare-chested or wearing a tank top, not bare-chested under a vest, but specifically making music while wearing a sleeveless shirt.

If you’ve clicked these opening links you’ll see that U2 drummer Larry Mullen has been known to wear the sleeveless shirt. I’ll grant that an argument can be made that U2 made some music of merit while Mullen donned such a gun-bearing fashion atrocity, but he’s a drummer. In past style pieces on Rock Town Hall, drummers have gotten a pass for all sorts of questionable fashion choices, including performing in barefeet and wearing shorts. We make some allowances for rock’s driving forces based on matters of comfort. For the purposes of this survey, we’ll give sleeveless drummers a pass. Beside, I want no part of George Hurley.

Granted, as a guy who’s never expressed his vanity through his forearms (as if I could), the whole sleeveless shirt thing mystifies me. It’s to be expected that the poster boy of Rock Town Hall’s Unfulfilled Fashion Ideas series, Alan Vega, would go sleeveless, but the style would spread to some of the coolest of the cool. How much comfort does a man need to be a rock legend? How much do we really need to know about him? Sure, sometimes even the President of the United States has to stand naked, but did Bob Dylan really need to play sleeveless?

Sleeveless shirt, leather pants, two pairs of shorts...Jerry wins this battle of Best Stage Look!

I don’t know when the sleeveless shirt craze took over, but do a search on a number of rock artists with the date “1985” following their name and I’d bet you can come up with as many shots of them sleeveless as I just did with Dylan. (BTW, I didn’t realize he was into the Bare-Chested Vest Look as early as the mid-’70s, for that Renaldo and Clare movie.) You don’t believe me? Try these:

Strummer, for all his late-period Clash fashion faux pas shouldn’t surprise me, but seeing him in sleeveless shirts still hurts. Make it stop already!

Even a search on Rock Town Hall’s patron saint of mediocrity, “Bob Seger 1985,” turns up this. I pray that’s a bare-chested hippie vest shot and not what it seems.

Could Jimi Hendrix, Rock’s Teflon Fashion Plate, Have Withstood the Stylistic Landmines of the 1980s?

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Jul 072011

"Go ahead, try to mock my sense of fashion!"

As Townsman junkintheyard hinted at in response to a recent piece by E. Pluribus Gergely and RTH Labs on the profound weakness of any man wearing an earring, Jimi Hendrix may have been immune to not only the debillitating effects of the earring but a host of questionable rock fashion choices.

Think about it. Hendrix may be the only rocker to get a pass for wearing a headband. It’s debatable whether fringe was ever cool, but no one calls bullshit on Hendrix for wearing it. You wanna cut up on bare-chested rockers wearing vests? Leave Jimi out of it. The kimono? Kimono Jimi’s house! I have not yet located a photo, but I bet Hendrix in a pancho would settle all debates over the potential coolness of that item of clothing.

Rock dudes bedazzled in jewelry? Jimi made it work. Floppy hats posed no hazards for the man. I bet the inside of that bad boy had been soaked in acid!

A Stars and Stripes jumpsuit for anyone not named Evel? Not even Elvis could pull that one off.

Sure, Jimi was black, but not even black guys are assured of pulling off the dashiki.

In terms of avoiding fashion faux pas Jimi had the good fortune to die young, and to die before the 1970s got underway. Jimi had already eclipsed the new decade’s attempts at achieving a larger-than-life Rock God persona. Similarly, Sly Stone, Miles Davis, and then Funkadelic would spend the decade chasing the man’s Psychedelic Pimp Look. Might he have flirted with asexual space-age glam fashions? Probably, and he probably would have picked up some cool backing singers along the way. Would Jimi have surprised us and opted for the down-to-earth denim ensemble of a singer-songwriter? Would he eventually identify himself with the punks and new wavers who owed something to him? Eventually Jimi would have been confronted with the satin siren call of disco. Although trecherous, somehow I think he would have made it work.

As a Rock Dandy who likely would have stayed that path, Jimi would have strutted a treacherous path as the decade came to a close and led into the 1980s. The long-term prospects of a Rock Dandy are fraught with pitfalls. For instance, black or white there’s only so much that can be done with long hair on a dude before he looks like he should be excitedly checking underneath his seat in the audience for a taping of Oprah. Could Jimi have found a way around Miles’ eventual downfall?

Nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide… Continue reading »

Groundbreaking Research by RTH Labs: Earring Declared a Sign of Weakness

Posted by E. Pluribus Gergely

Jul 072011

The following piece was submitted by Townsman E. Pluribus Gergely with funding and research support provided by RTH Labs.

Hi Oats,

I’m writing to apologize for not writing a single response to your recent Husker Du Main Stage posting. It was beautifully executed. That said, Husker Du never did a thing for me. Despite the fact that I’ve never heard a single thing they’ve ever done, I just know they have to be bad based on the fact that they’re from Minneapolis, Minnesota and their look is not to my liking. Anybody that collectively looks like that has to suck.

Speaking of Look, I stumbled across something a few days ago that made my hair stand on end. On the evening of July 4th, me, the ball and chain, and the brats headed over to our friends’ house to check out the neighborhood fireworks from their porch. Fireworks never did anything for me nor did they ever do a damn thing for my buddy, so we went inside his house and watched TV while the women gossiped and kept an eye on the brats. Whilst getting tanked, we stumbled upon Festival, a documentary of the ’64-’65 Newport Folk Festivals, on the Ovation channel (gotta love cable!). Lo and behold, there’s Donovan. Right, Donovan, no big deal. But as the camera drew closer, it was readily apparent that he was wearing an earring.

Not good.

What Musician Maintained Their Coolness for the Longest Period?

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Jun 292011

E. Pluribus Gergely posed the question, and alexmagic demanded that it be brought to The Main Stage:

What musician maintained their coolness for the longest period? I defy anyone to come up with a better choice than Keef (1963-1972). That’s a pretty good run.

E. Pluribus

As our resident Magic Man followed:

…we can get down into fighting over exact moments/years when people lost it.

Is there anything that disqualifies James Brown between 1956 and 1976? The appearance in Ski Party in 1965 would seem to be the biggest stumbling block, but I think it only adds to his legend.

Keef (1963-1972)…James Brown (1956-1976)… Agree? Disagree? Have someone more worthy to propose? The time is yours.

(Another) Paul’s Surprisingly Tasteless and Discomforting Look

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Jun 242011

First this, now this.

Despite his frequent lapses in musical self-awareness and taste, Paul McCartney‘s usually managed to maintain a respectable sense of personal style that plays up his everlasting cuteness while not succumbing to the eternally creepy cuteness of a Peter Noone, perhaps. (It’s just the way God made him!) McCartney managed to look good with his old shag hairdo, but a conflicted Paul awaits. I’m not a fan of hair dye for men and plastic surgery, but the man could do a lot worse.

The following clip, from 1974, is just such an example.

All we can see is Paul’s head, but a number of things are going wrong here. He seems stuck between Looks, and personally I find it discomforting.

Let’s All Laugh at Paul Weller’s Hair

Posted by hrrundivbakshi (online)

Jun 202011

Come on... seriously?

Please Explain: The Beach Boys Live in Paris, 1969

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Jun 202011

Happy birthday, Brian!

You know me when it comes to post-1966 Beach Boys: I’ve had it with any further examinations of Brian Wilson’s psyche, the possibilities left hanging in the unfinished SMiLE album, and the occasional decent tracks found on the albums following Pet Sounds. What I want to know is what exactly was going on in the band proper during the period captured for posterity in this 1969 Paris performance.

Has anyone ever sat down with one of the band members and asked them to look back specifically at this period? Not in broad terms of them hitting a commercial nadir, because that’s only a set-up for the triumphant return to the charts with Mike Love’s “concept album,” Endless Summer. Not even in terms of the band having reached its cultural nadir of irrelevance, because that would also be an easy set up for them to talk about how Endless Summer aided in healing a nation torn apart by Vietnam, Watergate, etc. No, what I want to know is if anyone simply asked Carl or Al what was going through their minds when they looked over at Mike. What discussions led to everyone wearing white while still allowing more than enough rope for a certain band member to hang himself in his own sense of personal style? What went through Carl’s mind the first time he caught a glimpse of his fat ass in those tight white slacks? What defined “success” for the band during that awkward stretch? I want thought bubbles atop these performances!

These performances of stomping hits from their past and stomping would-be hits of their then-present is pretty noble and poignant, if you ask me. Much more so than the detrius that’s more commonly put under the rock-nerd microscope and dipped into the critical wishing well of hidden riches. Maybe following my week in Paris and brushing up on my barely remembered French the narration accompanying the following 1970 Paris show will answer some of my questions…after the jump! Continue reading »

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