The Beatles

The Beatles have been a fixture of everyday life. Their music folows us where ever we go and many take them completely and utterly for granted. We think of the beat songs "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" with the happy go lucky "yeah, yeah, yeah" chorus but do you remember the movement of the the strings in "Golden Slumbers" or the break in John Lennon's voice and he breaks down an existance to "hiding your love away". The Beatles are only skin deep if that is all you take time to listen for, but as you delve into albums such as "The White Album" or "Rubber Soul" you will find that the boy charm of the early sixties quickly fade. Naive love and hopes is dashed in the song "Norweign Wood" and the broken soul of "She's Leaving Home" leave you aching. However, "All You Need is Love" is always there to bring you back to the hopes of a better way a lasting way. A their definate masterpiece, "A Day in the Life" mashes dayily life with almost dayily philosphy turning it into a transendent meaning it never had before. The last chord is hit so masterfully, you feel that it will ring on to eternaty. The Beatles maybe ordinary but there music can mean to the right person at the right time, something extrodinary.

Sarah M. and Sahale J. Pilgramages in Rock

Plymoth Rock
Stuck in a World of Bad Music? Here is a place to turn it around
THEN
1. The Beatles
2. Led Zeppelin
3. Eric Clapton - Cream... etc.
4. Neil Young - CSNY etc.
5. Bob Marley
6. Queen
7. Ray Charles
8. Bobby D and Joni Mitchell
9. Billie Holiday
10. Buddy Holly
11. Simon & Garfunkel
12. The Doors
13. Yes
14. U2
15. Robert Johnson

NOW
1. The Red Hot Chili Peppers
2. The White Stipes
3. Audioslave
4. Mofro
5. Tinariwen
6. Devon Sproule
7. Muse
8. Matisyahu
9. The Shins
10. Gnarls Barkley - Danger Mouse etc.
11. Jeff Buckley
12. Citizen Cope
13. Eagles of Death Metal - Kings of Leon
14. Manu Chao
15. Uncle Earl - Alison Krause

There are many, many more great artists that could not fit
in our rock book, but this is a very good place to start

Not so Secret

If you ever cared for me you would care about me still
or did those words on paper never make to action.
You use my soul and then throw me out like paper
Your emotions must be weak because that's all you
really devoted to me, and emotions are worthless rags.
You can't say you love someone, because that only
means anything to you, what you do proves it to the other person

The Secret Downfall of John Mayer

No one takes John Mayer seriously. No one but a bunch of teenage girls. For the first time I was introduced to Jeff Buckley and I finally found a justification for John Mayer. People respect Jeff Buckley, people love Jeff Buckley, and his library shares many of the same types of melodies found in John Mayer's Continnum. Why does the music world turn its back on John Mayer? Because he sold out to all the "your body is a wonderland" fans that came along. Jeff Buckley is a buried treasure and John Mayer is an international star, one because he was always true to himself and another because he sold out to get a famous standing. Everyone knows that John Mayer's saving grace was Eric Clapton directing the growing talent back on to the correct path. And the big Jessica Simpson debacle. No one can reasonably respect a man who dates a girl who thought buffalo wings were made of buffalo. Its true that Continnum is an amazing album but will the world give John Mayer a second chance? I hope they make him prove himself a further. One thing is for sure, make sure to check out Jeff Buckley's "Grace". It is amazing!

Mississippi Voodoo

Hwy. 61 must be the flatest highway that I have ever seen, and I could help but imagine the painted, paved road striped away to the bare highway of the depression. The pavement seemed the only thing anchoring the Mississippi delta to the present day. Each ram shackled house proved futher out location deeper and deeper into the dirty south that I had, at one time thought was only a stereotype. 48 miles to Clarksdale a sign proclaimed. That town's name was so infamous in my ears. Just like the Robert Plant and Jimmy Page record I would be "walking through Clarksdale". And there was no way that we were not going to "go down the the crossroad and get down on our knees". To be in Clarksdale was to fullfill dreams. But for now the glistening highway just cut across green feilds of endless farmland. I gazed at the lanscape and tried to imagine it in days gone by. I blinked and saw a Robert Johnson form walking down the dust beaten road and I blinked again and I was in Clarksdale. I felt a little scared. The rundown state of the town did not inspire confidence. I had never been in a place like this. Every window had bars on it, even the houses. Despite this I felt crime must be low because most of the stores had nothing to steal, dark and empty and cold. But the people were all but cold. What the south lacks in rich high to-doness it make up for in funky "soul men" as they call themselves. Their bomastic attitude and humor filled talkivness fills every crack in the town to bursting. The plantif moans of the bluesmean along the street shout a musical day long gone. The sound of a harmonica perks my ears as I walk towards the Cat Head infamous for its southern folk art and rare promotion of delta blues. The Cat Head is filled with echoes, in the art, in the music they sell, and the books about legends that only live on old crackling 78's. Model T Ford is playing an old Muddy Waters tune and it echoes down the street. Never in my life had I heard so many people utter names such as Howlin' Wolf and Son House other than myself in the constant convincing confidence hoping my friends would grab a passion for their music such as mine. Walking down Delta Ave. I can see the Ground Zero Cafe. Too many white middle class people come to these events. To study to "appreciate". I even count myself one of those. The blues was not made for middle class white America but just like the record company "the broke and hungry". Maybe hungry for some relief some assurance that they are not alone in this world. I wrote my name on the wall of the Ground Zero Blues Club. Morgan Freeman knew something of value... the Ground Zero is the spirit of the whole town. The walls are signed by everyone, inside and out. Gives it its own unique ambiance. The menu is only two entrees and you dine on folding chairs but its packed with the strangest assortment of everyone and anyone you can think of. A old black man pulls us aside and holds up a pair of dice. "What number is it?" I look again. "Eight," I say. He asks me again and just as I am about to say the same number the dice snap in his fingers and show double ones. "That was rad!" I say in my slang hippie a very strange word to here in such a southern place. He turns unphased back to his cup of still standing beer. I thought I saw Robert Plant, or should I say, I wished with all my heart that it was him, untill he spoke in a southern accent. Let me tell you that was the only disappointment of the trip!

Going Down to the Crossroads

Tommorrow we are embarking on a journey of remarkable preportions. We are, like the old Robert Johnson tune goes, "goin' down to the crossroad and getting down on our knees"! I'm very excited. We are going to road trip through to Memphis, TN and spend the night there. From previous visitation we are going to the coolest place on all of the infamous Beale Street, Rum Boogie Cafe. The Rum Boogie personifies all that Memphis represents. The Rum Boogie plays blues, deep blues music and has live music every night. The food is good and the atmosphere is good. After Memphis we are going to Clarksdale for the Juke Joint Festival. A whole day of blues goodness and we are going to visit the very crossroads where Robert Johnson suposedly sold his very soul to the devil. I hope that the weather looks up because it would feel like the right experience to listen to the southern blues without the southern feel. I'm very excited and will keep you posted on what happens!!

Induction to the Secret Society

This is a blog about the secret lives that my friends lead and this is a secret blog. 
My thoughts my, inspirations, and my observations will be directed here in a blog
that know one I know, knows about. I can't post this on myspace or write this in
a diary. This blog is complete cut off from my world, and that is its charm. I can 
be honest. This may not be the truth but it is the things I feel and the way I
perceive them, as twisted as that may turn out. These are the secret lives of people
I know very well.