Rolling Stones? £1,000 a pop? I'll take three...

June 20^th – What would you pay? I mean, at what level would you still think;

“Yup, that’s great deal I got there”

In all branches of the arts over the past years the sorts of money being asked for and, more importantly, paid to performers in both the music (classical and rock) and acting professions has and is bordered on the obscene. Many will say it’s not about the money it’s all about my art. My reply of;

“Fine, then you won’t mind doing this show/tour for free then”

soon shuts the buggers up. Exorbitant prices for our tickets to go see some performer or another on a one-night stand usually mean that the star, his agent and entourage are walking away with a fistful of cash at the end of the gig. I’m all for people being paid a fair wage, but I do draw the line at a stand-up or gang of four making £30k a night for a 90 minute gig…think that’s scary? Top comedians often gross £20m per tour…now that’s scary.

With the top film actors, $20m per movie is average (gulp) with some making in excess of $70m per movie plus 15% executive fees plus all the cossie they wore and the cars they used in the movie. They’ll also all tell you, at the end of their day, just how exhausted they are (I’ve even had this phrase used by actors who’ve just done a matinee and evening performance of a play); my reply of;

“Yes, but then, you’re not minin’ coal, are you?” soon shuts the buggers up.

Pay and perks isn’t all either. It’s far from unusual for actors, particularly in theatre, to have their dressing room/s redecorated to their taste if the run is a six-week or more one; not unusual to have multi thousands spent on such re-fashioning only to have to change it shortly after to accommodate the demands of yet another ego.

You'd think, back in the day, that the art would sufficient, fuck the gravy-train...well maybe not; everyone was on it. When Jimi Hendrix played the Newport Jazz Festival (don't ask) this day in 1969 his fee was...$125,000. They also paid his travel, his accommodation in a hotel and transport via helicopter to the gig; he played a two-hour set then buggered off; that'll be $125,000 please; thank you. Worth about $2.5m nowadays. That's $20,833 a second... Me? I think they got him for a snip.

Film music by... The Chipmunks.

June 19^th – There’s always another buck to be made in the music industry. At one time it was enough just to have the hit single or album. The cash that came from that was distributed (unfairly) by the production company and everyone (or almost everyone) walked away happy. The fact the tour costs to promote the single or album were taken out of the artist’s cut was a cross to be borne and, anyway, a good time was had by all on the profits and journey.

As time went on other avenues were pursued and new outlets sought to increase the shelf-life of product. Sheet music was one way but this was gradually phased out as the desire to hear a piano vamp of Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower only had limited popularity. Adverts were another way; backing tracks to tubes of toothpaste, sanitary towels and diarrhoea stoppers have saved many an aging rock star’s career…did you see what I did there? Career; diarrhoea? Value for money here, folks.

The increase of sales brought about by the use of songs or, in some cases, of whole albums in film scores is a fairly modern-day transfer for the pop industry. There was a time when the services of a Shostakovich or a William Walton, a John Barry or a Carl Davies would be sought out for the construction of a soundtrack that reflected the film’s artistic bent; no more. Now it’s sufficient just to tack on a load of pop songs to gain immediate street cred, and many a clunky movie was rendered memorable in the public’s collective consciousness by the virtue of a memorable song or soundtrack – An Officer and a Gentleman’, Mad Max – Beyond Thunderdome, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves to name but three.

This outlet can increase sales and audience fondness for both song and movie exponentially and the better the final movie product the greater is the standing of the artist to his or her paying public. Certainly being associated with, say, a Tarantino movie is, I would say, the height of cool; however, being associated with a film about a vampire-fighting, U.S. president is, I would say, decidedly un-cool.

On this day in 2012, the film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was released (escaped?) in the U.S. and, judging by the pre-release hype, Linkin Park who supplied the credit play-out song, Powerless must have been rubbing their hands at the thought of all those additional sales on the back of the film’s garnering of Oscars and BAFTA’s; alas, they were cruelly mistaken.

To have your song playing at the end of what was, even by fantasy-film standards, a laughable plot, dénouement and resolution has probably consigned that song to the dustbin of failure and you know what, it’s not such a bad song? What’s bad is having it allied to a movie where the head vampire is stabbed to death by a pocket watch…

Answers to the day before yesterday’s quiz: If you got ANY of them right you need to get out more.

1)   Surprise September wedding at Boone Hall Plantation in South Carolina for Gossip Girl and her Two Guys – Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds wedding

2)      Match the baby to the mum – Blue Ivy with Beyonce Knowles. Noah with Megan Fox. Olive with Adele.

3)      Everything is suddenly klum as bodyguard seals breakup – Seal and Heidi Klum breakup

4)      Dottie P takes on The Klan – Kardishan Klan sing up to Dorothy Perkins

5)      10 carrots for Friend’s engagement – Jennifer Ansiton engagement to Justin Theroux

6)      Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Florence Thurman-Busson makes debut – Uma Thurman’s name for her baby

7)      Right leg, right  photo op – Angelina Jolie on the red carpet

8)      Smells like further Fame for a Lady – Perfume launch for Lady GAGA

9)      Thrown out of Paradis by pirate – Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis split

10)  Snow White snogging session ends partnership – Kristen Stewart 

Is it a stage collapse or a life-and-death situation? No, it's just a Metallica concert....

June 18^th – With stage effects now at such a level of sophistication it’s hard to see sometimes where the line between fantasy and real-life is drawn. There’s many theatre shows now in operation that just leave the watcher awestruck (have you seen How to Train Your Dragon) with their ingenuity and lifelike props and set.

This theatricality spilt over into the rock arena during the late 70’s with Mr. Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Queen’s We Will Rock You tours (that’s the original We Will Rock You tour not that shite Ben Elton cobbled together from other people’s work, you understand) and on into the 80’s with Kate Bush’s (do you think, if I asked nicely, she’d marry me? No, me neither but what’s life without dreams) with Kate Bush’s Never For Ever tour and then on thro’ to the 00’s and shows like Okonokos and Lady Gaga (although her Bad Romance opening is too near the apocryphal ‘band in a pea pod’ routine that blighted the life of Spinal Tap for me to feel comfortable with).

I guess, in a way, the rock show that relies on personality rather than performance is more inclined to feature outrageous sets and costume in order to compensate for poor performers and so, whenever the opportunity arises to add a bit of colour to a particular set or song in order to salvage it, the use of F/X, specifically pyrotechnics, becomes the point of contact for the crowd/band/drama. It’s only when these things go wrong, however, that the blurred line of fantasy/reality become just a little bit too fantastically real to be recognised and acted upon.

That’s what struck home when watching the footage of the stage collapse in Edmonton when Metallica played there in 2012. Shan’t lay out the details, you can catch it on YouTube if you want, but suffice to say there’s what seems to be a major truss collapse (stop sniggering) and various bites of set fall to the stage along with a guy who, one imagines, was a follow-spot op. Dreadful. Lights go out, a lighting gantry falls near the audience and one of the crew runs off stage, his clothing alight…a really serious set of terrible accidents…except… Seems it wasn’t.

The guy who’s set on fire is wearing a mask and padded clothes and positions himself strategically over the pyro grill (anyone doing this for a living would know where not to stand in the case of a misfire…and misfires are only looked at after the show, not  during). The guy who supposedly falls from the top truss has his plummet to earth controlled by a fly-line on a pulley and all the truss and gantry land strategically around him, and in a complete reversal of what any respected crew and band would be trained to do in the case of such an accident, they all either remain on or rush onto the stage. Anyway, nobody died. But…what if sufficient members of the audience had believed it to be a real overhead staging collapse; what if the falling gantry had been sufficient to start a mass exodus. What then? It’s this blurring of the lines that can sometimes detach the real from the unreal.

There’s been many such real rock show disasters to choose from. Woodstock 1999, the Pukklepop Festival in Belgium, Roskilde in Denmark, the Damageplan shoot-out in Ohio and the Love Parade gig in Dusseldorf have all claimed multiple lives, real lives, and these incidents can happen anywhere, anytime and in any size venue.

On this day in 2012 the scheduled Radiohead concert for 40,000 in Toronto (Canada, again) was cancelled after their over-stage rigging collapsed, killing one and injuring several: When Great White set off their pyros at the Station Club where 462 people were watching their gig, the reality took several precious seconds out of the escape time for 100 people as, at first, I seemed to be just part of the show, a fantasy; just part of the show long enough for folk to be filming the blaze as it engulfed the stage, ceiling above it and then them… Tell you what, rock concert organisers recognise your responsibilities and, for my sake and 'cos I love you, each show you go to as a punter just remember to remain sensible enough to recognise fantasy from reality...just might save your life; OK?

Gay? No, just happy...

June 17^th – Salacious gossip is what sells newspapers; there’s a revelation that you’d not considered, isn’t it? And they’re iniquitous too. You don’t think? OK, let’s see how many slebs you can figure out from the following, slightly doctored clues:

1. Surprise September wedding at Boone Hall Plantation in South Carolina for Gossip Girl and her Two Guys

2. Match the baby to the mum – Blue Ivy with ? Noah with ? Olive with ?

3. Everything is suddenly klum as bodyguard seals breakup

4. Dottie P takes on The Klan

5. 10 carrots for Friend’s engagement

6. Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Florence Thurman-Busson makes debut

7. Right leg, right photo op

8. Smells like further Fame for a Lady

9. Thrown out of Paradis by a pirate

10. Snow White snogging session ends partnership

Now, you may have never read the stories that go with the above (I’d like to think you’re above such mundane stuff) may not even have seen the headline…and yet still, somehow, you know the personalities involved or the stories written. Innocuous innit, and just like an argument on Eastenders; if you’ve just missed one, stay online for a further few minutes ‘cos there’ll be another along shortly; there you are, a sting perpetrated by your Super-Soaraway Sun on Tilusa Constovstavius maybe? Perfect timing. Don’t want to discuss the events ‘cos I couldn’t care less, what I was intrigued by was the suggested aftermath of the case. Namely that our Super-Soaraway Shit has passed the dossier (that’s the word they use to try and give their gutter-sniffing a feeling of authenticity, of legitimacy) passed the dossier over to the cops who have arrested Tilusa and charged her. When the case came to court there is a question mark over the outcome due to the nature of how the press have operated in this particular case. What transpires is that, and I quote her ‘spokesman’ directly;

“Tilusa is unable to comment whilst the police investigation was on-going. She intends to tell (I read it as ‘sell’ – Freudian slip there) she intends to tell her side of the story, if she is cleared.”

Nothing to add to that statement, it’’s all there. You can work out the dirty details for yourself and my guess is you’ll shake your head at the pithy, schoolkiddie, childish….shite that’s going on here, all in the name of prurient entertainment for the masses: we should all be ashamed of ourselves because, when it comes down to it they do it in our name because we continue to buy this particular drug they peddle.

Walter Busterkeys anyone? The new film about him discloses what we all knew from the get-go. The only folk who didn’t know he was gay were those amoebas living in the southern swamps of the planet Tharg. Now, when the Daily Mirror printed this revelation, Buster threw a hissy fit, screamed that he wasn’t gay, sued them…and won! I believe he said

“I cried all the way to the bank”.

So, now we know he was as gay as a yellow duster (and a spiteful, manipulative little shit into the bargain) does the Daily Mirror get a refund? Bit late, I know, seeing as how Liberace is a long time gone but still…fair play…

Monterey led to 'The 00's Summer of Procrastination'

June 16^th – I think one of the things that sadden me most about the ‘then and now’ syndrome that we will all, in our advancing years (should we be granted the opportunity to do so…growing old is better than the alternative, remember) one thing we’ll all go through is the difference in belief.

Nope, this is not a religious polemic, honest, my religious convictions are reserved for face-to-face chats. What I’m writing about is the core beliefs of, predominantly, the younger generation, of which I was one once; I wasn’t born this age and a cynical moaning old git to boot, I grew into it. The fact that it now fits me like a second skin is just proof a chameleon can change its spots (now there’s a mixed metaphor for you). Neither am I running the old, my time was better than your time routine either. Each generation and age range has its own idiosyncrasies, hopes and ruinations; the tune may alter but the song remains the same (mixed metaphor two).

On this day in 1967 the first Monterey International Pop Festival in California was held. The bill was filled with what are now, in hindsight, the leading proponents of what can be classed as the beginning of the Summer of Love. The line-up included The Who, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix and The Animals to name but a few and it was The Animals that immortalised the event on their album, The Twain Shall Meet, released in 1968 with a track called…Monterey. But that’s not what I want to write about; this isn’t me running the old, my bands were better than your bands routine.

Whatever ‘we’ as a collective think about the Summer of Love or Flower Power or any of those other epithets that were posted on behalf of the psychedelic generation, both by newspapers to trivialise the movement and by politicians to discredit it, the one overriding fact that cannot be removed and that I still, now, at my advanced years feel in my breast is the we really believed that we could change things, and for the better. Now, whether we could in any way shape or form have actually done that is irrelevant, what counted was the fact that we believed we could, and that’s what frightened governments shitless.

Privately, the behaviour of JFK and MLK may have been questionable but there is no doubt their beliefs and speeches contained the elements of what Flower Power stood for. That war was indeed not the answer. That at some time you would have to sit down and talk to people that, in truth, you weren’t at all comfortable with and hear them say things that you weren’t at all comfortable in hearing, but that this was the only way forward; the flower in the gun barrel wasn’t just a cheap shot. At the beginning of the 14/18 war and throughout the four years of its slaughter people were vilified in the streets, tarred and feathered, shot by firing squad, beaten, humiliated for refusing to join the merry men in the trenches. Throughout the 55/75 Vietnam War people openly defied their government’s draft for them to join the merry men in the jungles and were supported and applauded for it. Ban the Bomb became a cause that could be won and was, to a greater extent, and at one and the same time the first real changes began to show in the equality of the sexes. We really believed that we could change things, and for the better; believed it.

Then came the Thatcher years and union disbandment, the three-day-week engineered by capitalist Britain to bring the working classes to heel and, in the final analysis, it took Bush and Blair to finally fuck this belief over, to rape it – as they say – like a lion on a lamb but in a bad way. Now, I talk to folk who are of the same age as I was back then and that’s the main difference; they no longer believe they can change anything; not even their political minds; and this isn’t me running the old, my politicians were better than your politicians routine. The dilemma is that the parties are indistinguishable from one another, now it’s all about style over substance and to follow the reasoning is to follow the money, so all that will become available is more of the same. What’s to vote for there?

The Police: There's excuses and then 'there's excuses'.

June 15th – Pretty well nothing more crushing than having a band or artist that you've followed for years, a band or artist that you've saved up your pennies to buy a ticket for to see one of their all-too-infrequent gigs on an all-too infrequent tour, cancel their gig at the last minute. I know these things happen and, in the rock ‘n’ roll world, where the plethora of extra-curricular activities can unseat a fellow, in truth the surprise is often that the band can function at all; certainly in the case of Motley Crue. In these cases and others that circulate around folk in the public eye, euphemisms are used to cover a multitude of sins and save embarrassment all round. Take the married, U.S. Ambassador to Belgium for instance.

Accused of using prostitutes, in some cases under aged ones, he stated he was;

‘shocked and horrified’,

 by these;

‘baseless accusations’, then added, and I quote verbatim;

“I live on a beautiful park in Brussels that you walk through to get to many locations and at no point have I ever engaged in any improper activity.”

So, the fact you regularly ditched your bodyguard when crossing this park, a park that’s a known hot-spot for soliciting by under age hookers and rent-boys, that’s just a coincidence, is it?

Bands do this kind of crassness all the time to get themselves out of a hole;

“There’s an illness in the family.” i.e. the drummer’s OD’d again.

“The singer had a family crisis to attend.” i.e. his wife found out he’d been shagging the girl who’d been seen on the front row of the last three concerts.

These cancellation excuses are all allowed because, after all, it’s a hard business, the rock business and there are casualties along the way. However, to cancel a recording session and tour, as Stewart Copeland of The Police did on this day in 1986, because of an injury incurred whilst playing polo? How terribly un-rock ‘n’ roll.

Eric Clapton, Greta Garbo: who they then?

June 14^th – My cynicism concerning the rock industry is well documented, not only by those who kindly and with a level of patience never before charted in the human race read these daily burblings of mine, but also by anyone who happens to mention the words, ‘Simon’ or ‘Cowell’ or ‘X’ or ‘Factor’ within earshot of what is, in the everyday, a deaf old trout like me; even under these aurally-challenged circumstances I still hear it, sense these words almost, and go off on one.

I also feel a similar rise of bile about folk in the sleb market who strain every muscle to become famous and recognised the world over only to then complain about their lack of privacy, but neither have I any truck with the shopping in slacks photos that are peddled as a staple of Hell Magazine and the like. Trust me, they’re not that interesting, neither subject nor photo, yet still they take them and still the mags print them.

Greta Garbo: now there’s a name to conjure with. Let’s just take a snapshot of her career. Think of anyone in the game nowadays that you consider has worldwide fame then treble it; honest. She was commanding film fees of $300,000 (doesn’t sound like much ‘til you realise that, back then as compared to now, you can times that by ten) and her gross earnings over 20-odd movies was $35m so, famous and rich. She never signed autographs, never answered fan mail, gave very few interviews, wouldn’t sign publicity contracts and never appeared at the Oscars despite being nominated for best actress. In 1931, Garbomania was at its peak and she was the most recognisable movie star on the planet; all the time remembering this was at a point in our history when the telephone was still a rare item in any household and a television non-existent so the fastest way to contact someone was either by telegraph or, failing that, by letter or, failing that, carrier pigeon…and yet she still dominated the movie world like a colossus and everyone in what could be classed as the modern world knew of her…everyone…and what’s the line that’s most associated with her?

“I want to be alone; I just want to be alone”,

and we all thought;

“Yeah; right, Greta, ‘course y’ do, that’s why you chose this career path; to remain discreet.”

But she did, she really gained that level of fame and then retired from the public eye; completely. When asked about her infamous comment she said;

“I never said, ‘I want to be alone’; I only said, ‘I want to be let alone’. There’s a world of difference”, and Greta is absolutely right; there is.

When Eric Clapton, global rock star and according to the graffiti of the time GOD, said he was tired of the hype and the weight and just wanted to be one of the band we all thought;

“Yeah; right, Eric”. But he did, he just wanted to be in the band. He formed Derek and the Dominoes, which opened on this day in 1970 and then went on to tour with Delany and Bonnie and Friends…which brings me nicely round by this circuitous route to the point of this guff.

One of the songs that has featured in my DID list every now and then is a live recording of, I Don’t Want to Discuss It, made on the European tour in 1970. Just a great piece of work done by the best in the business (Delany and Bonnie, Mr. Clapton, Leon Russell, Dave Mason, George Harrison, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, Jim Gordon, Bobby Keys, Jim Price, Rita Coolidge) and all at the very top of their game. The song features a standout lead break by Clapton that’s played from the back of the stage, just like any other muso, and the relaxed solo shines. Maybe, to achieve that level he, too, just wanted to be ‘let alone’ too…