Re: THE ROMAN SPRING of toomanycats
Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:19 am
This is the band we're opening for at Apps and Taps on Friday night. They're called That Arena Rock Show.
That guy on the far left looks like Traccii Gunns playing a Vivian Campbell signature Kramer Nightswan. The guy with the beard looks like Vinnie Paul from Pantera. The guy with the flying V looks like the leader of the band Steel Dragon from the movie Rock Star. The guy with the mic is definitely doing a Axl Rose thing. The bass player is the stereotypical tall, blonde dude holding down the bottom end . . . Eric Brittingham of Cinderella, Duff McKagen of GnR, Lonnie Mack from Bullet Boyz . . . he's that guy. This band is a semiotic mash up.
Rock and roll isn't a pose to me. Cool is a real thing. It's not just expressed in the music, but permeates everything about a performer, though not in a forced way. It must be effortless. Either you're cool or you're not. If somebody knew how to bottle cool and sell it they'd be a billionaire (I think that was the plot of an episode of Happy Days after it jumped the shark).
I've always felt like there were many members on this forum I could relate to in a unique way, in that we are roughly the same age, and that we share the same formative musical/cultural influences. Many of you, like myself, came of age as guitarist in the 70s or 80s, and your primary musical influences are rooted in the heavily blues influenced hard rock of the late 60s, which subsequently spawned bands like Aerosmith, and Van Halen, and later the entire L.A. scene which is now collectively referred to by the catch all phrase "Hair Metal." Some of you guys, like myself, actually lived this stuff, played in bands performing that music, know what it was like when guitar and hard rock topped the music charts, when videos on Headbanger's Ball were in the Top 10. If you were there then you know exactly what I'm talking about.
18 year old toomanycats performing onstage in 1987. I was ecstatic because the hottest new band on MTV, called Guns N' Roses, had played on that same stage the week previous. Graffiti by the band members was freshly inscribed on the walls of the dressing room, and one of the bartenders was proudly regaling us with the story of how she'd caught crabs from Axl.
A few months after this I had an audition for a new band being formed called Slaughter. I was knocked out of the running after being told I was, "Too young." How the ironies of my existence haunt me. In the 20th Century I was, "Too young," and now in the 21st Century I'm too old.
Promo shot used for my Slaughter audition, circa 1988.
Promo shots taken after I arrived in L.A. in 1989.
Yeah, I know, I'm just a footnote, on a footnote, on a footnote . . . but at least I was there and ran the race.
Perhaps you're reading this and share similar life experiences to mine, consequently perceiving That Arena Rock Show as something of a watered down recapitulation, akin to Disney on Ice, or a Vegas nostalgia act. I ask that you humor my meandering, random contemplations regarding the irony, absurdity, and euphoria I feel as this Friday gig approaches.
Age matters. That's a cold hard fact.
I wonder how old the guys in That Arena Rock Show actually are. I'm guessing probably not old enough to have actually been there back in the 80s, not like I was. I was at the NYC clubs like Lamour's, The Cat Club, Webster Hall, The Limelight, and a dozen other places in Jersey and Long Island I can't even remember the names of. On the West coast I was at the Whiskey, Gazzari's, The Troubadour, The Rainbow, and so on around the same time. These venues were ground zero of that entire scene. I lived it. To the hilt.
All of the guys I'm playing with on Friday night are young, and youth matters. Do you want to see cheerleaders in their 50s? Of course not. Rock and roll has always been a young man's game. Think of your favorite albums by Zep, Van Halen, Sabbath, Skynyrd, and so on. You know what they all have in common? All the members were in their 20s when that stuff was created. Old guys don't make music like that. The smart ones had the sense to die young and spare their fans the fat, old, dead and bloated on the toilet scene. That's a big part of the thrill for me of playing with guys in their 20s. There is an energy there that is undeniable.
But I'm, well . . . let's just say "not young." Here I am playing songs primarily from around 1970 in a band with "kids" young enough to be my sons, opening for another band of "kids" who were probably born in the 90s that play music from the 80s.
The best comparison I can make to how I feel is the sense of disjointedness evoked by recently watching old episodes of Dr Who from the 70s on VHS. I feel like I'm time traveling in the TARTUS. In one program the Doctor has a dagger wielding stone age warrior chick from the future with him, traveling back to the Edwardian England to do battle with an Egyptian God on the planet Mars. Whatever, sometimes you've just got to go along with the crazy and enjoy the ride . . . and I've certainly had my share of that in recent years.
That guy on the far left looks like Traccii Gunns playing a Vivian Campbell signature Kramer Nightswan. The guy with the beard looks like Vinnie Paul from Pantera. The guy with the flying V looks like the leader of the band Steel Dragon from the movie Rock Star. The guy with the mic is definitely doing a Axl Rose thing. The bass player is the stereotypical tall, blonde dude holding down the bottom end . . . Eric Brittingham of Cinderella, Duff McKagen of GnR, Lonnie Mack from Bullet Boyz . . . he's that guy. This band is a semiotic mash up.
Rock and roll isn't a pose to me. Cool is a real thing. It's not just expressed in the music, but permeates everything about a performer, though not in a forced way. It must be effortless. Either you're cool or you're not. If somebody knew how to bottle cool and sell it they'd be a billionaire (I think that was the plot of an episode of Happy Days after it jumped the shark).
I've always felt like there were many members on this forum I could relate to in a unique way, in that we are roughly the same age, and that we share the same formative musical/cultural influences. Many of you, like myself, came of age as guitarist in the 70s or 80s, and your primary musical influences are rooted in the heavily blues influenced hard rock of the late 60s, which subsequently spawned bands like Aerosmith, and Van Halen, and later the entire L.A. scene which is now collectively referred to by the catch all phrase "Hair Metal." Some of you guys, like myself, actually lived this stuff, played in bands performing that music, know what it was like when guitar and hard rock topped the music charts, when videos on Headbanger's Ball were in the Top 10. If you were there then you know exactly what I'm talking about.
18 year old toomanycats performing onstage in 1987. I was ecstatic because the hottest new band on MTV, called Guns N' Roses, had played on that same stage the week previous. Graffiti by the band members was freshly inscribed on the walls of the dressing room, and one of the bartenders was proudly regaling us with the story of how she'd caught crabs from Axl.
A few months after this I had an audition for a new band being formed called Slaughter. I was knocked out of the running after being told I was, "Too young." How the ironies of my existence haunt me. In the 20th Century I was, "Too young," and now in the 21st Century I'm too old.
Promo shot used for my Slaughter audition, circa 1988.
Promo shots taken after I arrived in L.A. in 1989.
Yeah, I know, I'm just a footnote, on a footnote, on a footnote . . . but at least I was there and ran the race.
Perhaps you're reading this and share similar life experiences to mine, consequently perceiving That Arena Rock Show as something of a watered down recapitulation, akin to Disney on Ice, or a Vegas nostalgia act. I ask that you humor my meandering, random contemplations regarding the irony, absurdity, and euphoria I feel as this Friday gig approaches.
Age matters. That's a cold hard fact.
I wonder how old the guys in That Arena Rock Show actually are. I'm guessing probably not old enough to have actually been there back in the 80s, not like I was. I was at the NYC clubs like Lamour's, The Cat Club, Webster Hall, The Limelight, and a dozen other places in Jersey and Long Island I can't even remember the names of. On the West coast I was at the Whiskey, Gazzari's, The Troubadour, The Rainbow, and so on around the same time. These venues were ground zero of that entire scene. I lived it. To the hilt.
All of the guys I'm playing with on Friday night are young, and youth matters. Do you want to see cheerleaders in their 50s? Of course not. Rock and roll has always been a young man's game. Think of your favorite albums by Zep, Van Halen, Sabbath, Skynyrd, and so on. You know what they all have in common? All the members were in their 20s when that stuff was created. Old guys don't make music like that. The smart ones had the sense to die young and spare their fans the fat, old, dead and bloated on the toilet scene. That's a big part of the thrill for me of playing with guys in their 20s. There is an energy there that is undeniable.
But I'm, well . . . let's just say "not young." Here I am playing songs primarily from around 1970 in a band with "kids" young enough to be my sons, opening for another band of "kids" who were probably born in the 90s that play music from the 80s.
The best comparison I can make to how I feel is the sense of disjointedness evoked by recently watching old episodes of Dr Who from the 70s on VHS. I feel like I'm time traveling in the TARTUS. In one program the Doctor has a dagger wielding stone age warrior chick from the future with him, traveling back to the Edwardian England to do battle with an Egyptian God on the planet Mars. Whatever, sometimes you've just got to go along with the crazy and enjoy the ride . . . and I've certainly had my share of that in recent years.