newcritics - Latest Comments in Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

mukhamo — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 09:31:00 -0000

Maybe this was part of the gift of fame to them, because of the fame they had forgotten their health having too many vices like smoking drinking and drugs can also be one of the reason.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Guest — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:47:39 -0000

great

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Greg OG — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:26:57 -0000

im gunna hafta say Cliff Burton deserves to be on this list, Died at 26 i believe, being one(IF NOT THE) best bassists to ever walk the earth!

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

sean — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 20:05:22 -0000

D. Boon (Minutemen)

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Jim Tourtelott — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 20:40:24 -0000

Dan, you're certainly right about Bloomfield and Butterfield, and about the far cheaper costs of admission back in the late 60s. Balanced against five buck tickets, though, it's only fair to remember that minimum wage (which I was getting as a bus boy in a Chinese restaurant) was about a buck and a quarter.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Dan Leo — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:43:23 -0000

Oh, and Jim, thanks for jogging my addled brain cells again, but your comment reminded me that somewhere on the list of great guys who lived too hard and died too young were Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield. The first two Paul Butterfield Band albums are a couple more that I've never gotten tired of.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Tom Watson — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:37:53 -0000

TK - Who Are You was, in many ways, a minor record, but the single was huge and has endured big-time. And Moon's drumming drives it. Besides, I'd take Moonie over Bonzo 100 times out of 100, taking nothing away from Zep either.

I based the list of people I wished I could have heard more from who died under 50.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Dan Leo — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:36:09 -0000

Hey Jim,

Yeah, one of the nice things about the 60s was that rock hadn't got so damn popular yet. Until around '69 I don't remember many bands playing stadiums unless they were the Beatles. I came from a working-class Philly hood, and it was no big hardship to me to use my teenage after-school supermarket-job money to hear good music at cheap prices in small venues. It is kind of mind-boggling to think we heard people like Hendrix and the Cream and Janis and the Mothers and the Dead in medium-size clubs and college basketball auditoriums for about five bucks a shot.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Tom Watson — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:33:48 -0000

Sandy Denny, yeah Dan - who knows where the time goes?

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Jim Tourtelott — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:03:30 -0000

Back in the days before everybody who could play three chords was richer than God and a working class boy in Providence could afford to see genuine giants at venues like Rhode Island Auditorium, the field house at Brown, Veterans Auditorium , the shore dinner hall at Rocky Point, and a hole in the wall on Thayer Street whose name is lost in the mists of time,I saw at those venues Cream, Hendrix, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the J. Geils Band (then a Boston-area band unknown elsewhere) and Joplin. (I also saw, all on the same bill, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Mose Allison. For five bucks. From a fourth-row seat. And in 1966, in a field in Newport, I discovered both Tim Hardin and Taj Mahal on the same afternoon.) I saw Joplin three times and Hendrix twice. Anybody who tries to claim that Janis was anything less than a force of nature and a god of rock and roll will have to answer to me.

Mighty interesting survey, though. Soon, they will prove that rock stars consume an inordinate number of recreational chemicals, and that they get more ass than the toilet seat at Larry Craig's house.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Dan Leo — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:37:30 -0000

Where is my brain? Don't answer that, but how could I forget another great woman:

Sandy Denny.

I've never gotten tired of listening to the albums she did with Fairport Convention.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Tom K. — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:15:06 -0000

It's not just about age, but also about what it means to be in one's "prime."

About half of your list was cleary not in the prime of their careers, as anyone asked the day before they died would have judged it. At least, Lennon, Presley, Thunders and Moon have to come off the list, on that basis.

While the Who were floundering (albeit with a minor comeback album) at the time of Moon's death, Zep was rolling on (albeit with a minor setback album) at the time of Bonham's death. If we're really talking prime, and not just preferences, he should be the 70's stadium-rock drummer on the list.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Kathleen Maher — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:01:27 -0000

I hearily agree, Blue Girl. Manny gets a reprieve. He'll never sing as well as Robert Palmer--let alone you! (I want this newcritics band for real. Wasn't Brendog a demon ska heart-throb fewer than ten years ago?)
Anyway, Manny has made me his main mission most of my life. Wherever that much goodness comes from needs discovery and world-wide proliferation.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Blue Girl — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 23:44:00 -0000

Manny, well there is one rocker from the 80s (and man, I *still* hate the 80s) that even though he seems to be over the cut-off age for this list, (he was 54) it really hurt me when he died.

And if I forgave him for his chauvinistic shenanigans, I guess I can forgive you, too.

grasshopper? Do you agree?

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Manny Maher — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 23:06:29 -0000

Ouch, blue girl, I didn't know you were listening!
I didn't mean to be chauvinistic. I must have prancing around last night like a drunken fool.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

blue girl — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:32:04 -0000

Hell no, heÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s writing me a song and playing lead guitar - for MY band.

Can I sing in your band?

LOL.

....we'll totally win.

:)

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Viscount LaCarte — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 20:40:08 -0000

Sorry about the malformed url. Here it is again: Kevin Gilbert's Certifiable Number One Smash

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Viscount LaCarte — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 20:35:26 -0000

Had he lived, you would have heard of Kevin Gilbert. He should be on this list, but he died before most people ever heard of him.

He would have been a Certifiable Number One Smash.

If you like those sound bytes, run over here and buy The Shaming of the True.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Viscount LaCarte — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 20:28:35 -0000

Had he lived, you would have heard of Kevin Gilbert He would have been a Certifiable Number One Smash.

If you like those clips, run over to http://www.popplusone.com/gilbert.html and order The Shaming of the True.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Tom Watson — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:46:15 -0000

Hell no, he's writing me a song and playing lead guitar - for MY band.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

blue girl — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:13:49 -0000

Tom, maybe you could pull some strings and get Peter T. to judge it.

lol.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

blue girl — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:11:24 -0000

Dan, between you and Decatur Dem over at Neddie's, I am suffering from major concert envy.

TW, RE a Newcritics' Battle of the Bands -- that would be so much fun, I'm not sure I could stand it.

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Dan Leo — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:53:06 -0000

Hey, Blue, not only did I used to catch the Velvets at the 2nd Fret, but I saw the Doors at the Civic Center, and Morrison was fantabulous. I guess the other really great dead guys I saw were Jimi Hendrix, who was totally cool and amazing, and Pig Pen, who was just too cool for words. Ah, but Janis...

For the back-up dead guy team I nominate Arelster "Dyke" Christian of Dyke & the Blazers, who recorded my #1 fave R&B song ever, the original "Funky Broadway". I highly recommend their greatest hits collection (there's two of them out there, a big one and a sorta big one) for anybody who loves really really nasty 60s soul. Poor Dyke got shot by some fool when he was only around 28...

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Tom Watson — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:41:27 -0000

BG - So you're saying a live, in-person, newcritics battle of the bands...

Re: Dead Rock Stars: Heaven’s Best Pick-Up Band (Or Hell’s)

Fatherflot — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:40:30 -0000

Best Rock and Roll death is still Johnny Ace---either he killed himself playing drunken Russian Roulette or was murdered by his manager and Big Mama Thornton.

I always thought Nico's bicycle accident was satisfyingly strange end to a strange life, kind of like Roland Barthes dying slowly from injuries caused by a laundry truck.