Category Archives: Music Appreciation 101

Greatest what?

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Great music is great music.

It doesn’t have a genre and bears no label.

If it’s great it’s great.

What makes a song great?

To quote A film, Eddie and The Cruisers “Words and music.”

Anyone can go on and on about who they think is the greatest guitarist or the greatest drummer or the greatest this and that. People will even argue about the greatest song ever.

Let me be real clear on how your friendly neighborhood Rock N Roll Shaman feels about the greatest in concept.

FUCK THAT NOISE!

Great is great and there ain’t no need to even try to call a greatest in something as subjective as personal taste.

I listen to great music all day and some of it comes from notable greats of yesteryear and some straight out of today, but it’s all great music.

I am working on a side thing writing some lyrics and when I was talking to the dude I’m doing it with, it reminded me of a story.

Several years ago when I was writing under the name The Movie Whore, I was doing a lot ghost work in the indy film world. I did get some interviews over the 3 years I was writing the blog. It was the one with Michael Pare who played Eddie Wilson in the above mentioned film that was my favorite. Here’s why.

That film at 10 changed the way I listened to music. I started paying attention to the lyrics and found out why a song is words and music. That film did as much to inspire my becoming The Rock N Roll Shaman as much as the music has since. Michael told me it was the one role he felt the most grateful to have had when I asked.

Enough about me.

What really makes a great song?

It’s when the artist puts their full life force into it because there is nothing else in life that makes sense. It doesn’t matter who else likes it, or who else it makes sense to, it had to come out and it had to come out that way. It’s the only way the soul could be satisfied in expressing what lie deep within crying to get out. It’s the only to make life bearable at times and other the only way to truly celebrate life.

It’s the full range of the human experience as told through the poetry set to music.

 

Now just for fun my top 5 all time favorite bands.

Motley Crue

Guns N Roses

Cracker (No not Uncle Cracker, just Cracker)

The Who

and the master of the love song, one Mr. Neil Diamond.

They are all great and not the greatest, however they speak to my soul better than anyone else and have for a long ass time.

 

Pick up that six string soul stealer and begin to wail and know that Rock N Roll will never fail.

Give it your very soul if you ever want to truly know what it’s like to truly live Rock N Roll.

The Revolution that never was

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The Beatles are arguably one of if not the most influential band in Rock ‘N’ Roll history. This buzz is not about that argument. This buzz is about one song that keeps influencing me almost daily.

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

The only revolution I ever desire to give my voice or energy to is the revolution of art and the ongoing war of ideas.

It’s been said that storytellers rule the world. Storytelling is an art form that belongs in the hands of the artists. For over 300 years we had a period of time we call the renaissance where the storytellers and the artists led a revolution in the evolution of thought.

In order for a species to evolve, their thinking must evolve as well. When I daydream about the revolution that never was, I see a bloodless evolution of the species. The world is changing and the human species is changing along with it. It’s the wave of change of the generation and the day.

We are not merely wanting to change the world anymore, we are changing it every day.

But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out

I’m a pacifist by choice after training myself in martial arts and in a way making a weapon of myself. I have had to use it once and that was enough for me to easily choose a life of non violence. If you have never come within seconds of killing someone one there is no way to explain how you see yourself after that moment. If you have never taken a life, ditto.

Too many veterans live with the PTSD that moment causes. Too many don’t get the care they need. Too many are homeless.

Whether it helps or not, can we stop killing each other for a day please and thank you.

Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright
Alright, alright

I often refer to the song Carry On as the song that keeps me going while waiting for other dreamers to join the us that is ever growing us that all listen to Imagine by John Lennon as a sacred song of holy worship.

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We’re all doing what we can

There is no master plan that anyone of us could devise that would really work. It has to be designed as it fits as we go. Massive world change takes time and small steps.

Take the time to think globally and be a part of the ongoing refinement that is our shared evolution of thought and then do something locally with it.

But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait

Forget about the hate and heal the pain.

Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright
Alright, alright, al…

It’s the only way it will ever be alright.

You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You’d better free your mind instead

Who knows what form change is going to take?

I have a few ideas.

No one human has the right to dictate life for the rest.

If you think it should be you, please get your head examined immediately. You have lost touch with reality.

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow

Take out Chairman Mao and insert vile politician or head of whatever country works for you.

Don’t you know know it’s gonna be alright
Alright, alright

It’s going to be alright when we work to make it so.

 

Do you know what it’s like?

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I listen to the song WHAT IT’S LIKE by Everlast as a reminder to engage empathy and that doing that is acting with mindfulness.

We’ve all seen the man at the liquor store beggin’ for your change
The hair on his face is dirty, dreadlocked and full of mange
He asked a man for what he could spare with shame in his eyes
“Get a job, you fuckin’ slob”‘s all he replied
[CHORUS]
God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in his shoes
‘Cause then you really might know what it’s like to sing the blues
Then you really might know what it’s like [4x]

Ever been that guy or gal to tell a homeless person to get a job and that it’s all their fault they are homeless?

Ever been so foolish to think that people are responsible for their own lives and you have no responsibility to anyone but you?

Ever been turned down for assistance because you are not a minority?

Ever been vilified for being you?

Mary got pregnant from a kid named Tom who said he was in love
He said, “Don’t worry about a thing, baby doll, I’m the man you’ve been dreamin’ of.”
But three months later he said he won’t date her or return her call
And she sweared, “God damn if I find that man I’m cuttin’ off his balls.”
And then she heads for the clinic and she gets some static walkin’ through the door.
They call her a killer, and they call her a sinner, and they call her a whore
[CHORUS]
God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes
‘Cause then you really might know what it’s like to have to choose
Then you really might know what it’s like [4x]

Ever stepped up to the plate to be a man?

Ever claimed to a spiritual person and then judge a young woman who decides to get an abortion?

Ever been that young woman who needed more than anything to have someone exercise some empathy?

I’ve seen a rich man beg
I’ve seen a good man sin
I’ve seen a tough man cry
I’ve seen a loser win
And a sad man grin
I heard an honest man lie

I’ve been that guy.

I’ve seen the good side of bad
And the down side of up
And everything between
I licked the silver spoon
Drank from the golden cup
Smoked the finest green

Been that guy too.

I stroked the baddest dimes
At least a couple of times
Before I broke their heart

I am not happy I was that guy once.

You know where it ends
Yo, it usually depends
On where you start

For every success story of someone making it out of poverty there are countless more horror stories of those who don’t even if they work their asses off and do all the same things those success stories did.

Typically speaking, born poor, die poor.

I knew this kid named Max
He used to get fat stacks
Out on the corner with drugs
He liked to hang out late
He liked to get shit faced
And keep pace with thugs
Until late one night
There was a big gun fight
Max lost his head
He pulled out his Chrome .45
Talked some shit
And wound up dead
And now his wife and his kids
Are caught in the midst
Of all of his pain
You know it comes that way
At least that’s what they say
When you play the game
[CHORUS]
God forbid you ever had to wake up to hear the news
‘Cause then you really might know what it’s like to have to lose
Then you really might know what it’s like [3x]
To have to lose…

Let me tell you a story about the dumbest guy I ever met. Not me this time though the song uses my name.
I knew this guy in high school and then didn’t see him for over twenty years. A couple of years ago we reconnected through Facebook one day. I found out the day we started hanging out again that he had been a drug dealer since high school. I had no clue in high school.

I smoked weed twice in high school and one of those times I was pretty sure I smoked oregano.

As we were hanging out and bringing our friendship current, he told me a story about how he got on the radar of the F.B.I. He started dating one of their informants. A woman testifying against a crystal meth ring.

Here’s why he’s the dumbest guy I ever met.

Over the next year I spent most of our time together trying to talk him out of remaining in the drug game.

During that year I spent a lot of time in his garage with thugs and stone cold killers. He was still dating her and his felonious friends had no idea.

I tried to get through to him that she was telling the F.B.I. everything to build organized crimes cases against the organized crime parties he was doing business with and that was the mob, the Bloods and the Crypts, biker gangs and the Mexican Mafia. He was connected to all of them and was doing business with all of them.

She often had access to his phone and he even had told me more than he caught her copying stuff of his phone.

He had it in his head he was too good to ever get caught.

I haven’t spoken to him in over a year because I didn’t want to go to jail or get shot in the cross fire should his business associates ever find out about his F.B.I. informant girlfriend.

He refused to understand the F.B.I. was letting him do business to rack up evidence. He thought he was really getting away with outsmarting the F.B.I.

Willful stupidity and willful ignorance is the worst kind of both.

I hope he wised up and decided to fly straight. If not…

History and Skin

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Skin By Sixx: A.M. and why I listen at least once a day to this song.
Paint yourself a picture
Of what you wish you looked like
Maybe then they just might
Feel an ounce of your pain
I am Shaman by birth not choice. I always wanted write fiction and make movies and music and stuff. I am working that into my life.
The things that hurt the most is that being born the Taltos I am means I often happen to be right and I never feel the need to be right.
I can’t even begin to describe the amount of loss that has brought to me in life. It’s pretty much why I spend so much time in solitude and have taught myself to enjoy it.
They say wisdom is for the world and I rarely meet any as wise as I am and most of the time it’s why I alienate people and they find reasons to exclude me from their lives.
You never get used to that when you do truly love people or you never would have said a word.
It’s as unfair to me as it feels to the people I call out on their bullshit even when they have no idea they are full of shit.
Born doin’ this.
At 43 it ain’t going anywhere.
Come into focus
Step out of the shadows
It’s a losing battle
There’s no need to be ashamed
I am never going to apologize for being able to be correct because I channel Source wisdom.
I was born with a short leg that I fixed myself internally.
Since then I have tasted more pain and suffering from exclusion for being right than anything else in my life.
Yet I still keep bringing it from within with everything I have got to live the love people talk about and I back up in action daily.
‘Cause they don’t even know you
All they see is scars
They don’t see the angel
Living in your heart
Let them find the real you
Buried deep within
Let them know with all you’ve got
That you are not your skin
I don’t know how to not love all of you.
Some of you I dislike at times and some of you have lost my respect for the lack of respect you show for yourself and others. However I guarantee you if you ever needed anything and I could do it, it’s done.
I used to give free cab rides to an ex girlfriend and check in on her after we broke up because she had no one else doing it.
I forgave a man who assaulted a woman close to me and then later he ended up helping me nurse a broken heart that this woman broke.
I have given away roughly $5 million in free energy work and counseling over the last few years and most of that, 99% of it to women in or coming out of abusive relationships.
I give most of my physical energy to my dad who has Parkinson’s to keep him out of a wheel chair. Part of my energy healing technique.
I accelerate people though the awakening process. My energy gives people a total ramp up just hanging out with me.
I made myself a conduit for this so I just radiate it. There is a big boost of it going into this.
I do nothing but give in my life.
And the next set of lyrics applies to this as well.
When they start to judge you
Show them your true colors
And do unto others
As you’d have done to you
I give without reservation or question or expectation because I can.
Just rise above this
Kill them with your kindness
Ignorance is blindness
They’re the ones that stand to lose
My kindness is my honesty. It’s that honesty and being an open channel that allows me to remove ignorance and drop the veil.
What people stand to lose is their ability to lie to themselves about who they are and who they have been and the effect their choices have on the sum.
They see the suffering they inflict on others.
They lose irresponsibility.
They lose the ignorance that was their bliss.
They lose their innocence as they judge themselves. I hold judgement for no one. I always say judge thyself alone and be forgiving and change the choices you make to avoid that guilt from ever creeping up from within again.
‘Cause they don’t even know you
All they see is scars
They don’t see the angel
Living in your heart
Let them find the real you
Buried deep within
Let them know with all you’ve got
That you are not your skin
Nothing centers me more and faster than this song.
Cried the first dozen times I listened to it and still do on occasion.

 

Silence is deafening

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Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains within the sound of silence

This song has been with me since high school when my English teacher used it as an example when I was in the 10th grade.

All of us venture into the darkness that is our darkness that we often try to claim does not exist. We live in a world so concerned with image that we forsake the biggest part of ourselves. Our light that we show the world is born from our darkness.

In our darkness we place the things we say we will never do, however these things are still fun to think about and tempt us in the world of fantasy that is the darkness of our own souls.

The emotions and ideas that others express about us even from a great distance always reach us on the emotional level. People with an advanced empathic sensitivity or Empaths key in on this big time and often when they sleep they wake with the feelings of all around them and the emotional concepts that have been aimed their way.

Those thoughts and emotions are planted within us whether we like it or not.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed
By the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening

People writing songs
That voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence

The waking dream that is life leaves many walking alone.

I find it disturbing that the easiest way to connect to anyone is through the sound of the silent communication of the online world.

People talking without speaking as they type away hoping someone will care.

People listening as they read while they judge and determine if what was said has any merit and it’s easier to turn a blind eye when no one else is watching as you are alone with your smart phone or computer.

In the naked light of broad daylight we create a great divide in silence between us as we stare at screens and find it troublesome when someone actually wants to talk to us face to face. Then we complain about the lack of face to face communication.

We have to speak aloud.

We have to listen to what is said.

If we don’t we alienate each other and stop caring as much because well fuck it, it’s online and I can block them through whatever social media platform I am using.

We are so caught up in image we ignore those who we think might cause others to think less of us. We tie our image to our career and the way we make a living, trapping ourselves in a cage we created by caring too much about what other people think.

“Fools,” said I, “you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you.”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

Recent studies have shown that ignoring someone actually causes them pain.

It’s the most inhuman thing we do.

We do it because we are too cowardly to say something to them directly.

There are those such as myself who have dedicated their lives to bridging gaps and finding ways to connect that take us off line and put us front and center face to face with no where to run and hide.

We have made ignoring each other far too convenient and it allows us to be inhuman to each other and we do it all over image.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
And the words that it was forming

And the sign said,
“The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.”
And whispered in the sound of silence

We have traded neon lights for website names such as Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking platforms.

We have made these sites our Gods and the people on them our prophets.

We have made our online images so important we forget to act like a real human being online as if we were in the same room.

We elevate people to God like status and then ask them to show us the way through what they post.

We pass judgement on those who don’t measure up to the image we want to have and ignore them.

We seek the glory of having that popularity we were seeking in high school and call it business.

In the sound of silence we destroy other peoples lives by simply ignoring them.