Dave Grohl, always a good speaker and interviewee, couldn't have put it better.
Bring back real music!
Sunday, 27 October 2013
You Tell 'Em, Dave!
Had to share this, as it sums up very accurately the problems with the current 'music' scene.
Dave Grohl, always a good speaker and interviewee, couldn't have put it better.
Bring back real music!
Dave Grohl, always a good speaker and interviewee, couldn't have put it better.
Bring back real music!
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
Richie Havens and Me
I first came across Richie Havens when I was about 14. My investigation into older music was moving away from the British R+B of Cream and early Fleetwood Mac and shifting attention across the Atlantic towards counterculture and psychedelia. Late one Friday night I was lucky to catch the documentary film about the Woodstock Festival, a visual treasure trove of 60s music, and there he was.
Richie Havens came to prominence at the festival, opening the entire event and playing for over 3 hours because no other acts had yet made it through the traffic jams that surrounded the site. By the end he was improvising songs based on old spirituals, his rendition of 'Freedom/Motherless Child' becoming a major part of the soundtrack for that period in history.
Despite some of the more flambouyant acts who followed him at Woodstock (Sly and the Family Stone, The Who), Havens nevertheless stood out for me. There was his unique guitar playing and tuning style for a start, but mostly it was his voice. Gravelly, emotive, genuine. I've yet to hear anyone else deliver such feeling through song.
In the pre-internet days it required old school research to try to discover more information about him. It even meant lowering myself to such uncool levels as asking my dad. What was more difficult was getting hold of his music, as record shops across Manchester from corporate giant to independent failed to stock any material. I finally got hold of a 'Best Of...' album in a record store in the Haight Ashbury area of San Francisco - Ground Zero for hippiedom - while I was doing some travelling around North America and it's one of my favourites to this day.
By far my greatest Richie Havens highlight came in 2002 at Kent State University in Ohio. He played a set at the 32nd annual memorial service to mark the shootings in 1970, where four unarmed students were shot by national guardsmen during an anti-Vietnam War rally. The event is a lasting smear of hypocrisy on the history of the United States, and it remains a highly emotional event within the local community. To have such an important peace and civil rights activist as Richie Havens play was a huge deal, and he proved a fitting headliner. Moving effortlessly between activist song and story-telling, he also drew some stark parallels between the Vietnam era and the problems with the invasion of Iraq that were taking place at the time.
But mostly it was the songs. Delivered with the authority of a man bearing over three decades' involvement in activism, the relevance was stark and poignant. Sitting on a stage adorned with four large pictures of the students who were slain in the shootings, he sang a rendition of a Quicksilver Messenger Service track called 'What About Me'. The lyrics include the line "We're prepared to stand up for what we believe in, and we're prepared to be shot down," and I doubt they have often been so apt as on that afternoon, while the relatives of the four students looked on.
Following the memorial service the local student anti-war society staged a demonstration against the Iraq invasion that progressed down Main Street into Downtown Kent. I went along to take pictures but kept my distance when a full division of riot police descended and kettled the protestors. Turning to head for home I bumped into Richie Havens, who was similarly spectating events. In my star-struck awe I managed to carry half a conversation, during which he told me that he'd not long returned from England as he'd been recording some vocals with Groove Armada and was subsequently doing some remixing for them. He was polite, happy to talk to me, worried for the safety of the protestors outside and clearly full of a true human spirit. Only later as I arrived home did I realise that I had my camera in my hand but had been so struck by meeting him that it hadn't even registered in my mind to ask for a picture.
Well, real memories last much longer. I am truly sad that he has passed away.
Richie Havens came to prominence at the festival, opening the entire event and playing for over 3 hours because no other acts had yet made it through the traffic jams that surrounded the site. By the end he was improvising songs based on old spirituals, his rendition of 'Freedom/Motherless Child' becoming a major part of the soundtrack for that period in history.
Despite some of the more flambouyant acts who followed him at Woodstock (Sly and the Family Stone, The Who), Havens nevertheless stood out for me. There was his unique guitar playing and tuning style for a start, but mostly it was his voice. Gravelly, emotive, genuine. I've yet to hear anyone else deliver such feeling through song.
In the pre-internet days it required old school research to try to discover more information about him. It even meant lowering myself to such uncool levels as asking my dad. What was more difficult was getting hold of his music, as record shops across Manchester from corporate giant to independent failed to stock any material. I finally got hold of a 'Best Of...' album in a record store in the Haight Ashbury area of San Francisco - Ground Zero for hippiedom - while I was doing some travelling around North America and it's one of my favourites to this day.
By far my greatest Richie Havens highlight came in 2002 at Kent State University in Ohio. He played a set at the 32nd annual memorial service to mark the shootings in 1970, where four unarmed students were shot by national guardsmen during an anti-Vietnam War rally. The event is a lasting smear of hypocrisy on the history of the United States, and it remains a highly emotional event within the local community. To have such an important peace and civil rights activist as Richie Havens play was a huge deal, and he proved a fitting headliner. Moving effortlessly between activist song and story-telling, he also drew some stark parallels between the Vietnam era and the problems with the invasion of Iraq that were taking place at the time.
But mostly it was the songs. Delivered with the authority of a man bearing over three decades' involvement in activism, the relevance was stark and poignant. Sitting on a stage adorned with four large pictures of the students who were slain in the shootings, he sang a rendition of a Quicksilver Messenger Service track called 'What About Me'. The lyrics include the line "We're prepared to stand up for what we believe in, and we're prepared to be shot down," and I doubt they have often been so apt as on that afternoon, while the relatives of the four students looked on.
Following the memorial service the local student anti-war society staged a demonstration against the Iraq invasion that progressed down Main Street into Downtown Kent. I went along to take pictures but kept my distance when a full division of riot police descended and kettled the protestors. Turning to head for home I bumped into Richie Havens, who was similarly spectating events. In my star-struck awe I managed to carry half a conversation, during which he told me that he'd not long returned from England as he'd been recording some vocals with Groove Armada and was subsequently doing some remixing for them. He was polite, happy to talk to me, worried for the safety of the protestors outside and clearly full of a true human spirit. Only later as I arrived home did I realise that I had my camera in my hand but had been so struck by meeting him that it hadn't even registered in my mind to ask for a picture.
Well, real memories last much longer. I am truly sad that he has passed away.
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