Music - The Golden Age (well, actually, waaayyy more colors!)

[Frog]

At the Cow Palace in south San Francisco.
 I was there. The guy did a good job.
I thought I read somewhere later that it was a drum tech for the band.

Read the story I linked.

[Sbrem]

The reason why this period of music still holds up is that the record companies were able to filter out the best and then promote and afford to support them.  The labels had a huge hand in making these guys the stars they are.  The creativity then wasn't a canned sample.  They had freedoms and artistic input that was fine tuned, polished by excellent recording engineers, mastered by eq experts, and packaged in great art pieces on their covers.  Vinyl was king, supply and demand was on the demand side for sure. An album release was supported with well thought out tours and professional management that today's up and coming artists struggle to get in a contract.  Today it is almost all DIY in the beginning.  Gone are the days you could open for someone at the Troubador and become the next huge band, like so many LA bands became, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles, the Doors and so many others.

Today you can create a masterpiece and it wouldn't get air play. Music is homogenized, packaged cheaply, tours only happen if you have a huge following already.  Some of the highest grossing tours today come from bands who would fit in an old folks home, we'll gladly pay for the ticket to relive the memories of the days we are talking about. Recording contracts today only go to proven bands, no one is going to take a flier on a young band belting out blues today.  Clive Davis, who found Janis Joplin and many others, has a great read on the music industry, "the Sound track of my life" plus a few other books I can't remember off hand, but all good behind the scenes details we never new.   A link to some his stories of the past: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/earshot/60-things-we-learned-clive-423616

When I'm not harassing you guys on making better screens, I'm picking up a 72 Les Paul and playing as many songs as I can tonight with my band of 35 years.  It is interesting how many printers are musicians.  For those that love rock n roll, go to a guitar store, pick up a nice electric and a good amp and find some friends to jam with, watch you tube videos, best hours of entertainment possible.

I could tell you were a player from your writing. I played a ton back then, but realized after a while that I probably would be playing in bars for the rest of my life, and as a non drinker, not all that thrilled at the prospect. So, I've been printing since then, but have many blues/rock and commercial bands since. My main electrics are an '86 - '62 reissue Strat and a 335, but I play mostly finger style acoustic for my main pleasure. A few Taylors and a Santa Cruz. When I retire, I will pretty much do nothing but play, eat, and you know... Really, I just want to live long enough to do that.

Steve

Steve