Growing up, I was torn between Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, and I'm not sure why. I posted some Led Zeppelin songs and now for some Beatles. What got me going with the Beatles is the song All You Need is Love, which I first heard watching the final episode of The Prisoner. I became an instant Beatles/John Lennon fan. Later, Imagine and Cold Turkey came out and also strongly affected me. John Lennon was probably my favorite of The Beatles.
When I had my band Ophelia's Dream, I did John Lennon's song Cold Turkey. It was a fun and intensive song to play, especially when I would go into the screaming part of Lennon going cold turkey off of heroin. He was also doing primal scream therapy.
Yeah, we'll yak later!
The Down and Outs. It's weird because I do an exercise routine where the instructor says, "Move your arms up, now down and out... down and out... down and out." And every time she says that I start to laugh because I have this image of Red Skeleton's Freddie the Freeloader wandering through the class saying, "down and out, down and out." We did Gloria too, but I thought it was strictly Van Morrison. Did you know Bill had a chance to be Van Morrison's guitar player at one point? He turned it down. Now Van is with Clapton doing, in my estimation, a real rebel thing. I won't get into the COVID thing, but I give credit to Clapton because he really is writing about something that has happened to him. That is what the blues are about -- as they say, it's gotta be real!
Mick Taylor was supposed to play here at a blues festival, but he never showed. We've had Ten Years After and Robin Trower play at the blues festival, but I really wouldn't think of them as blues bands. Why do these people play into their old age? Because they love it (B.B. King) or they have alimony payments. John Cleese said that alimony was the reason he is still working. What was the name of your band?
The "Don't Bring Me Down" song sounds like the Yardbirds to me. And "Rosylan" sounds like the early Stones with a strong Jagger voice. I'm hearing everything in Pretty Thing. Maybe it's just one of those days with me. haha Cool that you were playing locally. My band wasn't really a touring band. We'd play around our local too. In Ontario, a booking agent would send you up north, to the bars in the little towns, and that was typically a test on the band. If a band could survive that, it had staying power. Then it could become a case of travelling across Canada. There is a movie about a punk band travelling across Canada called "Hard Core Logo" and it's pretty funny and tragic at the same time. I don't envy musicians doing the gig thing. Packing up at 2:00 in the morning and then driving home in a snow storm. No, thanks. It's romantic maybe at the beginning but as you get older it's punishment. (unless you have roadies) I like going to Blues Jams where you walk in with your guitar and can leave at any time. There's a place in London that I use to go to and took my son there who also plays guitar. Here we are just jamming around on a two-chord progression.
I've heard the name. I've associated it with Bowie's “Oh you pretty things” or with The Troggs for some reason, but I don't think I've heard their music, though I've just read now that Jimmy Page really liked them. I'll have to check them out. Strange that you mention the singer from the band because that is the guy -- Chris Williamson -- with whom I'll be doing a duet this Christmas. He'll have a different moniker, probably Chris Rockheart, and will be dressing up as an Australian rocker. We're doing Stop Dragging My Heart Around by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. It should be a wild video.
Where did you play as a blues band? Did you tour around or just play locally? What kind of blues did you guys play? The closest thing to a blues band I've been in was a Neil Young clone band that also covered other songs. We did play a Blues Festival that some guy organized, but it turned out to be a disappointment. The guy who organized it couldn't pay anybody, so he got beaten up and put in the hospital by his security team. We, too, didn't get paid. Here is a video of us doing Johnny B Good. It was a weird experience because I lost a screw from my Floyd Rose locknut system. The whole time I was playing I was looking for it on the stage floor. But I did find it at the end of the show!
I like the Stones too. Great party music. I really got into them about 1979 or so, with Some Girls, and bought almost everything. They would be stationed in Toronto to do rehearsals before a tour. Now and then Mick would show up at a nightclub. I saw them with the Voodoo Lounge Tour and I liked the expression of Kieth when he played a wrong note... he just smiled.
Yeah, you are probably right that the second video can't be seen in some countries. I've taken footage from the TV series The Prisoner and the All You Need is Love simulcast. That probably violates copyright in these countries to the point of not showing it. Normally, if you violate copyright YouTube just says that they can add advertisements to your video.
I used to do Jumping Jack Flash of the Stones with my band. It's more sped up and a bit more of a Johnny Winter version. Here it is at a party we played at: