Certainly there are still a few bare-chested rockers out there, including the eternally bare-chested Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, and Anthony Kiedis, the last of whom who’s wisely begun working vests into his wardrobe, but when these veteran rockers are gone will a younger generation be prepared to pick up the slack?
One of the great byproducts of live gathering of Townspeople is the new topics for discussion that develop. Not all Townspeople type as quickly as others or have the ability to type out their observations on a given subject during the blog’s peak periods. In the presence of any combinaton of you, few rock insights and wisecracks are left unexpressed. At Saturady night’s Sausages for Sammy gathering my close, personal friend Townsman chickenfrank shared a few insights on a video that we were watching that quickly entered my mental notebook. Here’s the video that was projecting onto the wall of my garage:
As a yardful of Townspeople nodded along to this ultimate display of rock’s Power & Glory, chickenfrank, seated to my right, made the following key observation:
Which rocker sported rock’s most unexpected beard? I think it’s important to determine this…once and for all. Continue reading »
OK, musical tastes aside—and in full acknowledgment that your humble Moderator is not that cool—how many telltale signs of a rock ‘n roll asshole can you spot in this “Super Boogie” clip?
Before anyone gets high and mighty and accuses me of never having made a living off playing music like these super-duper road warriors—Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, and Steve Lukather—and therefore am not qualified to hold an opinon on this matter, can we have a moment of honesty? Come on, even if you’re having fun and think you’ve earned the right to pull off some of these moves, such as tucking your jeans into your boots, deep down you know you’re pushing it, right?
So go ahead, these guys are big boys, they can take it. See how many rock ‘n roll asshole moves (ie, gestures, dress, gear accoutrements, faces, licks, etc) you can spot!
Who among the following New Wave–era skinny tie wearers were Skinny Tie Poseurs and who were the Real Deal, Stylish Hepcats?
Real Deal, Stylish Hepcat or Opportunist?
If you don’t recall or are too young to have lived through it, the New Wave era of the late-1970s was when skinny ties were first brought back into hipster vogue by a generation of forward-thinking, backward-dressing musicians who weren’t comfortable with the wide ties of the late-1960s through mid-1970s. While The Clash sang about phony Beatlemania having beaten the dust, a number of their music-scene peers were embracing the skinny ties and suits that Brian Epstein and his tailor pushed as de rigueur among original British Invasion bands.
Goin' skinny!
It’s funny, to me, that The Beatles’ skinny tie beginnings carried so much stylistic clout because they were not skinny tie purists. Through the 1960s they would ride the vanguard of rock tie fashion: from skinny to bow to wide ties and eventually the cravat. Not that it really matters to this discussion, but as a boy I modeled my fashion sense along with each new development in the Fab Four’s Look, which explains why I’ve never moved past a deep preference for wide ties let alone developed much of a Look beyond what the band left me following their breakup. Continue reading »
Dashing!
It’s finally starting to warm up, so I should have no business thinking about scarves for the next few months, but Robbie Robertson is showing up in the rock press to promote his new, certainly terrible album, and I’m finding myself thinking about the promise held by the silk scarf he wore in The Last Waltz.
I can’t stand wearing a scarf, even in freezing cold weather. They make my neck sweat and itch. I can’t get them to stay on my neck and shoulders. Within a few minutes of trying to wear a scarf I’m bugged that I can’t zip or button up my coat properly, and next thing I know one end of the scarf has slipped down and is practically dragging on the ground.
When it’s really cold out my wife tells me I should wear a scarf. When I was a kid my Mom used to tell me to wear a scarf, too. I don’t get that cold, especially around my neck. Most fashionable accessories we cover in our ongoing series on Rock’s Unfulfilled Fashion Ideas are not regularly recommended by both wives and mothers, but the Rock ‘n Roll Scarf had the dashing mastermind behind The Band as an advocate. Continue reading »
Just got back from Boston with the Fam. While there we checked out the kinda cool ICA museum, where they had an exhibit The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl. Most was just so-so, but they had the original David Byrne More Songs About Building and Food artwork, which was way larger than I imagined (90″x90″) Typically I don’t dig musicians doing cover art. I don’t know why—it smacks of “look at me-ism,” to me. But that cover was very cool. I don’t think even Beefheart did much of his own cover art. Maybe David Thomas? Anyway, this has probably been hashed over, but is it proper for musicians to do their own covers—except for the Head, that is?
