And I have become, comfortably numb
David Gilmore (Pink Floyd)

I was flicking around the internet the other night and came across a clip of Queen at the live aid concert in 1985. As I sat there and watched in awe as Freddy Mercury took 1.5 billion viewers across the planet live on a trip into musical history, I realized something. It occurred to me that there will never be times like this again in music. There will never be another Queen. It made me think of the music I grew up with, and it really is true. Never again will Led Zeppelin Play to 74,000 people like they did in London in 1973. Never again will the Beatles stop a city with fans lining the street. Never again will Jimi Hendrix make love to the audience with his psychedelic guitar.

One day they will all be just digital images on a DVD, or a collection of magnetic bits on a tape, deep in the back of a drawer somewhere. One day they will be the distant memories of an old man, sitting by the fireplace, waiting for his candle to blow out. What then, what comes next. Who today could ever write another song like “Wish you were here, or Stairway to Heaven.” What is it that elevates these songs to such importance in our lives?

I listen to music today, and it just doesn’t do it for me. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t put today’s artists in the same league as the greats of my youth. I wonder if it is just me getting old, have I become my parents, looking with disinterest at today’s music,
Maybe, but somehow I don’t think so. I think my generation was part of something very special. Part of a time when the stars and the universe lined up for just a short while to create some of the greatest moments in music that there has ever been. When I listen to David Gilmore get together again with Roger Waters for the live 8 concert, when I listen to them play together, to play comfortably numb to the 75000 people gathered to watch. I can’t help but feel this is one of those events in history that hold such importance, that they etch themselves into our minds forever. There is a surreal feeling when I watch them play now. I have been privileged to see some of music’s royalty in my time.
I have seen Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Kiss, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Suzie Quatro and more. I have grown up listening to the Beach Boys and the Bee Gees; I have destroyed my hearing listening to ACDC, Kiss, and Black Sabbath. My list could go on and on to include the greatest music of my time. I was teasing my kids about this the other day, and I realized something else. We did it first, who was there before Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they created heavy metal. Who was there before pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream? The kids today think they invented their thumping brand of electronic music we call doompf. But go listen to Kraftwerk form 25 years ago and they did that first too. I listen to my music now and so often get a lump in my throat, I am to frightened to talk, incase someone hears my voice falter and it gives away my secret. Watch the latter part of a Tribute to George Harrison and see if you can make it through without a tear welling in the corner of your eye. My music today generates so much emotion, more than I remember in my youth. It is hard to convey to those younger than I, what the music meant to us back then. How do you explain to a kid, what it meant to hear that Elvis died, or the terrible loss we all felt the day John Lennon was murdered. How can a kid understand what it felt like to be front row centre in front of 45,000 people at the Kiss concert in 1980?, or how an angry youth could go shave his head after watching run like hell from Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
I wonder if it is the musings of a middle aged man watching the sand in his hour glass slowly but inexorably pile up on the floor. As I am writing this, David Gilmore is playing comfortably numb in the background. I see he is looking old as well. They all are. As years go by, one by one the greats fade and fall, Sid Barret went this year. One day soon we will all be just pages in a history book, just like the numbers of veteran soldiers of another generation are lessening, year by year, so are we all. Each day there are fewer of us who can say, “I was there when they played that” I know in my heart of hearts that my kids will build there own memories of the music they grew up with. They will one day sit and think the same things I have here tonight. But even so, I know that my music, the music of the 60s, 70s and maybe the 80s was the first. We did it first, we invented it. The 60s generation protested it ands smoked it, the 70s and 80s rocked it and went wild, we were the first head bangers, all else are copies, following in the footsteps of Led Zeppelin and Motorhead. But, I know these times have gone now, just pages in a book, never to return. Just a collection of times and places stored in our heads, meaningless to all that were not there. Something for our kids to say, “Yeah sure Dad, get with it will you” It is frightening how quickly it all fades into history. Pink Floyd nailed it when they wrote

“And then one day you find ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.”

How quickly it has all passed by me. So now, we leave the legacy to the kids. It is their turn to create the memories now. It is there turn to find the music that touches there hearts and minds. Isn’t it funny though how prophetic the music can be. Again in the words of Pink Floyd

“The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime and life is a short warm moment and death is a long cold sleep”

I didn’t realize 25 years ago when I listened to that, they they were talking about me.
So I will go back to my chair and close my eyes and let David Gilmore take me back to a place so long ago when everything was new, when life still held the wonder of youth, instead of the cold reality of the constantly ticking clock that is my life. I guess I too have become “Comfortably numb”

Greywolf (aka Dundee) 2007
(from: Silent Musings of an old Grey Wolf)

This post has been edited by Dundee: Oct 2 2008, 03:23 AM

I have never agreed with any one more Dundee. My granddaughter will be in the car and she says ,maw maw DO WE HAVE TO LISTEN TO THAT? I told her, every thing you listen to today is based on this. Shut up and let your mind hear the sounds and the words. Now she's 15 and she has fallen in love with Queen, and all the greats. No music will ever be as great as the music of our youth. Our grand kids and great grand kids will say the same about there music at our ages.

hey Dundee.

the world didn't forget about bach, mozart, handel, tchaikovsky, holst... greats of their time, innovators, magicians.

their music is part of people lives, even daily, still. most folks just don't realize it.

many hymns used in churches are based off the works of early masters. its ground in.

nah we won't be able to see a sold out show from these mummies... but isn't that part of the beauty of their art?

how about that sand art that the monks perform? amazing. so perfect. and then gone forever without record. one aspect of art that makes it so valueable is the fleeting moment.

i assure you, there is good music out there. but you won't find much of it on mtv or your local radio station. you have to dig deep.

i cut my teeth on the 60's generation of music. (thanks mom & dad) the greats that i know of from every genre thereafter would not be if not for their predecessors. it is the student's destiny to surpass the master.

mainstream culture has no soul. every now and then it develops one, but not for long. (fleeting moments)

The Artist's work is a DIRECT reflection of society. artists create from what they see, hear, feel... they are the pinnacle of social commentary. this principle is taught in institutes of higher learning, its not just my opinion. so what we see in today's art is very much so a product of it's environment just as the hippies were a product of their parent's ways.

its hard to think of some guy half your age as a master of anything. but it happens. those greats were half your age now when they were inspired to take an uncharted path. one must be willing to accept that there have been better artists before and there will be after. always a bigger fish. stagnation is bad for art. maybe the stars were in alignment. cool. i can dig it. but their legacy must be worth something. johhny cash... for instance, before he died, researched all kinds of new music, did it his way, and showed those whooper-snappers how they should have done it. lesson learned.

dude! i think you underestimate the power of black sabbath! it gave birth to an entire genre of music full of sub-genre and crossovers. from where i stand it was a right of passage to at some point tell your parents to go to hell, march straight to your room, crank up the 'sabbath, and start wrecking the joint.

the ones we know about are but a fraction of what is out there. or what was. for every great like sabbath, 'zep, the stones, etc... there where how many more that never made it big? and its even probable that there were actually better artists (gasp!) and groups that deserved it more and never got it. remember man... lowest common denominator, thats what makes it to the big time, what appeals to most.

some of the best music i have ever heard was in an dirty smoke-filled den of anonymity. rather than sitting amidst an over-capacity crowd. i'd rather be able to buy the band a round, than gaze upon them in starstruck awe as if they were gods.


(its speaks volumes of your character, to me, to know that you have sacrificed good hearing for the sake of an epic jam.)

do you hear this when you go to sleep at night?:

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Dundee, Cricket... this is for ya'll...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNf9rEPoc8Q

from 1980, but still "the bees knees" (snicker.)

He's for everyone of us
Stand for everyone of us
He'll save with a mighty hand
Every man every woman
Every child - with a mighty flash

Yep, two distinct tones, loud as hell I can thank Kiss for that, when they played at VFL park in Melbourne in the 1980/81 world tour, I was standing front row, 5 meters right of center. The speakers were mounted on scaffolding two stories high, each side of the stage. I counted 125 of those great big black speakers you see in a pub, on each side of the stage and I think there was more up high. The opening track was Detroit Rock City and it was so loud, when the opening bars of the song started, I got tunnel vision, it went black from the outsides and I ended up with small circles of vision for a few seconds, hovering on unconcious, then it moved out again to normal vision. I was 4 meters from the speaker stack with no ear plugs. I was almost deaf for a day, and slowly as my hearing returned and beleive it or not, came back to normal, I was left with...
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
And it has been their ever since

Would I do it again...In a heartbeat
After that cam Deep Purple, Iron Maiden and so on, well the eeee's got louder from then on.

Heya aba, thanks, I love that movie, and with Queen there well, what can you say.

Not sure if you have seen it before, but here is the clip that I was talking about. This is what I mean about the stars and planets lineing up for a short while, to create something special.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob5NpdkH5Dw

Music of those 60s 70s 80s was special, because that is what we grew up on and the music reflected the mood and times we can relate to.
I still believe the best years were 1965 - 1975. It was great for music, cars, style, etc etc..
The youth today, did not grow up during these great years and can not relate to it like we can.
We know there was much music well before this time, but music did not have the impact as it had during those decades and may never quite..again.
I'm just glad to say I grew during those memorable moments in music history.
I will never forget some of those 'one hit wonders' that helped to make those decades as memorable as they are...MAY THEY LIVE ON FOREVER...

This thread should be 'Old Boys Reminisce'.I'm more of a Bowie and Hippie Psychedelia music.(yes i know long hair and tamborines).

The good ole days for me.

These days that translates, or more aptly, transcends, as in, has evolved, into Goa Trance (Dance).. top stuff... we have a famous Goa Trance party held at Byron Bay (Haven for the hippies who are eternal children coz they come from a generation who refuse to grow up) which even gets a mention in Waki Wiki. Nothing like a weekend Goa Trance Dance happening in the bush, dancing to the tunes of drums guitars and didgeridoos.. all ages, from babies til you drop down dead age...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa_trance

Dundee, there is some great stuff about today... just that it's not commercial and if Pink Floyd (and some of the other 'oldies') were a 'just started out today' band they would probably never make it in the same way they did way way back then. There are so many people into creating music these days that much of the real good stuff simply doesn't make it on commercial radio unless it's an underground one...

Though, I always thought 80's music was basically ultimate crap.. to me it seemed like a flat, mediocre decade with the Billy Joels and all those middle of the road croners...

Arhhh I've definately got a phobia for fluro colours...

Dingo
.

I learned to appreciate older music when the stuff they play on the radio, particularly rap and hip hop, started dumbing down the music, and now everyone sings about the same shit, over and over. mainly about money, sex, violence, etc. its annoying.

older music just has so much more talent. the words evoke emotion, because the writer, as he wrote the lyrics, put his very soul into it. And back then, people didnt have much to do besides basic daily errands, so they were really good from all the practice time they put in. plus, there were no video games, internet, etc, which kids usually waste all of their time and effort on.

It was an era of expression. nowadays, its an era of oppression.

This post has been edited by vyrtigo: Oct 3 2008, 10:37 AM

There was something special about that music.
I'm a total music snob. I don't like many new bands.

Abadake, what's that Fucking Champs song that's all dramatic that goes :

(major chord)

dum dumpa dumpa dumpa dum!

(one count pause...and then in minor)

dum dumpa dumpa dumpa dum!


...it's called...something with the name "Thor"..."thor is like immortal"?

Man, the Fucking Champs are up there with the all time greatests, IMO.
Maybe Radiohead, too.
Sarah McLachlin in her own way.

Not too many "giants" out there now, tho...

Interesting punctuation for a moderator kelly

I didnt realise how disrespectful my last post was about the older generations.

They were more dedicated and worked very hard, in my opinion. One fact is that they didnt have the internet, computers, cell phones, or even televisions at times... im talking about the 60 70 year old generation. also perhaps the 40 50 generation.

it was a golden age.

I think in my opinion, figuratively speaking... That the potential that has lasted from the golden age, will manifest in these ages as bursts. as the children from those generations take over this one, and their children and grandchildren take over the next, after that.

What we have to take into consideration now, are those who wish to disrupt the natural cycle of life, without placing a better cycle in its place.

how is that possible?

This post has been edited by vyrtigo: Oct 7 2008, 05:21 PM

hafta get back to you on that one...

Ha, and you know what's so funny? People were as offended by rock'n roll as they were when rap first hit the set. Personally, I've come to realize that music is a lot like food, in that I have to experience new tastes once in a while, to really appriciate it, even if it means listening to something I consider bland.

For a long time, I dreaded country music, but now, I don't mind it. Rap was something I used to detest, but now I know plenty of rap songs, verbatim. And the most recent style of music that I have come to love is Jazz, especially Frank Sinatra style.

Dundee, I'm sure that the generation before yours thought the same thing. Where has Dean Martin gone? Bing Crosby? Who is that? These are all people that helped shape music into what it is today. And most people I know only care about what's on the popular radio stations.

You know I may start a thread on the pros and cons of popularity.

Fair comment, but I did wonder if I have become my parents, but I really don't think so. Do you really put todays artists in the same catagory as the likes of Led Zep, or Jimi Hendrix? How often do todays artists atract crowds of 75000 people? I honestly think it is a not me getting old, but just that so much of todays music is just no talent rubbish. There are very few pwoplw today who I would call a great artist or band, like Pink Floyd, or Elvis, or the Beatles.
Go back to my original post and look at that clip of queen. That does not happen today.

Well, I was at rock fest '97 in Texas, USA. There were many modern bands there. There was also 500,000+ people. But I did keep wondering what the hell they were so exicted about.

You know why modern music is so terrible? Because with todays synthesizers, equalizers, crossfaders, and mixers, any jackass with the right kind of management can be a star, and appear to have talent. By releasing a hit, they put no effort into creating something of their own (not like they could if they tried), and they have effectvely doomed the kind of sensation you get when you would listen to the great bands of yesterday. The older bands did what they did because back then, you had to actually be good at performing music to be considered a muscian. And that's the same reason they did so well, live. No dubbing, no crossfading, just raw talent, ready to be appreciated by the crowds. There are still good modern bands around, but I wouldn't count on them not receiving some digital enhancement once in a while.

Did you know that these pop artists of today are more like actors than musicians? They really don't create anything of their own, but it's more like a record label has a beat, and they contract a star who happens to be popular at the moment, to perform it. And they star does nothing but come to the studio, sing, and go home, while the sound crew mixes and enhances the sound into the next hit. It's no wonder people don't flock to see live music anymore; they know deep down, this new stuff is faked.