OT: The Music Thread Part Six

[GordonHowe]

One thinks one has an understanding based on accounts and reputation, but one has absolutely no idea how understated this is until one witnesses it in person. For a guy whose shtick is working class antihero, he's quite the delicate prima donna.

Shook his hand at the Paradise in '85, which I bragged about previously in this space.

I'm sure you know about the Eurovision thing. And man, maybe it's changed over the last while, but he's one big boy these days.

I was struck by something Steve Jones said of Lydon: that John was "the most insecure person I've ever met."

I will say, he took in one of Ari Up's children without credit or fanfare,

In 2008, Ari Up was diagnosed with breast cancer. She refused chemotherapy.[14] Lydon later commented, "Who refuses chemo because they don’t want their Rasta locks cut off? Ariane Forster was just…not sensible. She thought she could cure herself with witch doctors. We spent hundreds of thousands trying to save her, but it was too late."[14] Despite the diagnosis, she performed in July 2009, with Perry and Austrian dub band Dubblestandart in Brooklyn, New York, just before the Central Park SummerStage festival.[15] One of her last recordings took place in May 2010, in New York with Perry. The sessions were recorded by the Subatomic Sound System and released in August 2010 on 7-inch vinyl, titled "Hello, Hell is Very Low" b/w "Bed Athletes." The Slits' final work, the video for the song "Lazy Slam" from Trapped Animal, was released posthumously in accordance with Ari's wishes.[16]

On 20 October 2010, Ari Up died in Los Angeles, aged 48.[1] Her death was initially announced on Lydon's homepage.[17][18] Lydon and Nora Forster became guardians of Up's third son.

Favorite Pistols pic,

 

[Fenway]

 

[McGarnagle]

Me too, generally speaking. I'm a huge Sinatra fan. I'm a big Lennon fan. I love much of Dylan's work. I love John Lydon, jerk that he is.

Etcetera.

One thinks one has an understanding based on accounts and reputation, but one has absolutely no idea how understated this is until one witnesses it in person. For a guy whose shtick is working class antihero, he's quite the delicate prima donna.

He's definitely got some attitude problems, but I respect the fact that he was the only person who had the guts to say anything about Jimmy Saville's behavior before that scandal broke publicly, and ended up getting banned from the BBC for it

 

[08SeaBass08]

I saw him go out of his way to be an asshole to a completely innocuous stagehand for no reason other than wanting everyone to know he was in charge. Unnecessary rock star ego trip - the very same shenanigans the Pistols were all about destroying. Love his bands, though.

 

[08SeaBass08]

Speaking of great, yet largely unheralded, Boston bands:

 

[GordonHowe]

He's definitely got some attitude problems, but I respect the fact that he was the only person who had the guts to say anything about Jimmy Saville's behavior before that scandal broke publicly, and ended up getting banned from the BBC for it

Saville psychopath.

 

[JAD]

Free
Alright now

 

[aguineapig]

One of New York City's Finest







For his friend Lou Reed

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

 

[Orr Fourever]

 

[Dreghorn2]

Speaking of the Dolls. The house destruction scene from the excellent series Vinyl on HBO. Really wish they hadn't cancelled that series.

 

[jgatie]

Speaking of the Dolls. The house destruction scene from the excellent series Vinyl on HBO. Really wish they hadn't cancelled that series.

Saw Buster Poindexter in New York in the late 80s. After the final encore, he came back out and played Personality Crisis and Stranded in the Jungle with the lights on. He sounded so much like David Johansen, it was almost like they were the same person.

 

[GordonHowe]

One of New York City's Finest







For his friend Lou Reed

I know his name. That's it. Clearly, you're a fan.

 

[GordonHowe]

The infamous '78 Southern sojourn cooked up by, who else, Malcolm McLaren.

They never would have exploded as they did without Malcolm, but a prick and a con man without peer.

The tour's final show took place at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom, and we all know what happened there, and thereafter,

US tour and break-up[edit]​

In January 1978, the Sex Pistols embarked on a US tour, consisting mainly of dates in America's Deep South. Originally scheduled to begin a few days before New Year's, it was delayed due to American authorities' reluctance to issue visas to band members with criminal records. Several dates in the North had to be cancelled as a result.[153][162] Though highly anticipated by fans and media, the tour was plagued by in-fighting, poor planning and physically belligerent audiences. McLaren later admitted that he purposely booked redneck bars to provoke hostile situations.[112] Over the course of the two weeks, Vicious, by now heavily addicted to heroin,[163] began to live up to his stage name. "He finally had an audience of people who would behave with shock and horror", Lydon later wrote. "Sid was easily led by the nose."[164]

Early in the tour, Vicious wandered off from his Holiday Inn in Memphis, looking for drugs. When he was ultimately found, he received a beating from the security team hired by Warner Bros., the band's American label.[165] He subsequently appeared with the words "Gimme a fix" on his chest—accounts vary as to whether the words were written or carved there.[166] During a concert in San Antonio, Vicious called the crowd "a bunch of Homophobic Slurs", before striking an audience member across the head with his bass guitar.[163] In Baton Rouge, he received simulated oral sex on stage, later declaring "that's the kind of girl I like".[167] Suffering from heroin withdrawal during a show in Dallas, he spat blood at a woman who had climbed onstage and punched him in the face.[164] He was admitted to hospital later that night to treat various injuries. Offstage he is said to have kicked a photographer, attacked a security guard, and eventually challenged one of his own bodyguards to a fight—beaten up, he is reported to have exclaimed, "I like you. Now we can be friends."[116]

"No Fun"
0:17
Sample of "No Fun", a cover version of the Stooges song—studio recording from 1976 or 1977

---

Problems playing this file? See media help.
Rotten, meanwhile, suffering from flu[168] and coughing up blood, felt increasingly isolated from Cook and Jones, and disgusted by Vicious.[169] Steve Jones and Paul Cook “couldn’t stand being around Johnny and Sid anymore. You couldn’t turn round for a minute without Sid starting a fight … Then on top of that you had Rotten, who was on his own trip and basically thought he was God by that stage.”[170]

On 14 January 1978, during the tour's final date at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, a disillusioned Rotten introduced the band's encore saying, "You'll get one number and one number only 'cause I'm a lazy bastard." That one number was a Stooges cover, "No Fun". At the end of the song, Rotten, kneeling on the stage, chanted an unambiguous declaration, "This is no fun. No fun. This is no fun—at all. No fun." As the final cymbal crash died away, Rotten addressed the audience directly—"Ah-ha-ha. Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Good night"—before throwing down his microphone and walking offstage.[171] He later observed, "I felt cheated, and I wasn't going on with it any longer; it was a ridiculous farce. Sid was completely out of his brains—just a waste of space. The whole thing was a joke at that point.... [Malcolm] wouldn't speak to me.... He would not discuss anything with me. But then he would turn around and tell Paul and Steve that the tension was all my fault because I wouldn't agree to anything."[172]

On 17 January, the band made their way separately to Los Angeles. McLaren, Cook and Jones prepared to fly to Rio de Janeiro for a working vacation. Vicious, in increasingly bad shape, was taken to Los Angeles by a friend, who then brought him to New York, where he was immediately hospitalised.[173] Rotten flew to New York, where he announced the band's break-up in a newspaper interview on 18 January.[174] Virtually broke, he telephoned the head of Virgin Records, Richard Branson, who agreed to pay for his flight back to London, via Jamaica. In Jamaica, Branson met with members of the band Devo, and tried to install Rotten as their lead singer. Devo declined the offer,[175] which Rotten also found unappealing.[176]

Cook, Jones and Vicious never performed together again live after Rotten's departure. Over the next several months, McLaren arranged for recordings in Brazil (with Jones and Cook), Paris (with Vicious) and London; each of the three and others stepped in as lead vocalists on tracks that in some cases were far from what punk was expected to sound like. These recordings were to make up the musical soundtrack for the reconceived Pistols feature film project, directed by Julien Temple, to which McLaren was now devoting himself. On 30 June, a single credited to the Sex Pistols was released: on one side, notorious criminal Ronnie Biggs sang "No One Is Innocent" accompanied by Jones and Cook; on the other, Vicious sang the classic "My Way", over both a Jones–Cook backing track and a string orchestra.[177] The single reached number seven on the charts, eventually outselling all the singles with which Rotten was involved.[178] McLaren was seeking to reconstitute the band with a permanent new frontman, but Vicious—McLaren's first choice—had sickened of him. In return for agreeing to record "My Way", Vicious had demanded that McLaren sign a sheet of paper declaring that he was no longer Vicious's manager. In August, Vicious, back in London, delivered his final performances as a nominal Sex Pistol: recording and filming cover versions of two Eddie Cochran songs. The bassist's return to New York in September put an end to McLaren's dreaming.[179]

Deaths of Spungen and Vicious[edit]​

After leaving the Pistols, Johnny Rotten reverted to his birth name of Lydon, and formed Public Image Ltd. (PiL) with the former Clash member Keith Levene and school friend Jah Wobble.[180] The band went on to score a UK top-ten hit with their debut single, 1978's "Public Image". Lydon initiated legal proceedings against McLaren and the Sex Pistols' management company, Glitterbest, which McLaren controlled. Among the claims were non-payment of royalties, improper usage of the title "Johnny Rotten", unfair contractual obligations,[181] and damages for "all the criminal activities that took place".[182] In 1979, PiL recorded the post-punk classic Metal Box. Lydon performed with the band through 1992, as well as engaging in other projects such as Time Zone with Afrika Bambaataa and Bill Laswell.

Vicious, relocated in New York, began performing as a solo artist, with Nancy Spungen acting as his manager. He recorded a live album, Sid Sings, backed by the Idols, featuring Arthur Kane and Jerry Nolan of the New York Dolls; it was released in 1979. On 12 October 1978, Spungen was found dead in the Hotel Chelsea room she was sharing with Vicious, with a stab wound to her stomach[183] and dressed only in her underwear.[184] Police recovered drug paraphernalia from the scene and Vicious was arrested and charged with her murder. In an interview at the time, McLaren said, "I can't believe he was involved in such a thing. Sid was set to marry Nancy in New York. He was very close to her and had quite a passionate affair with her."[184] The actor and heroin dealer Rockets Redglare, who delivered pills to the apartment, has been mentioned as a possible alternative to Vicious as Spungen's killer.[185]

While free on bail, Vicious smashed a beer mug in the face of Patti Smith's brother Todd Smith, and was arrested again on an assault charge. On 9 December 1978 he was sent to Rikers Island jail, where he spent 55 days and underwent enforced cold-turkey detox. He was released on 1 February 1979; some time after midnight, following a small party to celebrate his release, Vicious died of a heroin overdose.[186] He was twenty-one years old. Reflecting on the event, Lydon said, "Poor Sid. The only way he could live up to what he wanted everyone to believe about him was to die. That was tragic, but more for Sid than anyone else. He really bought his public image."[187]

 

[Fenway]

The infamous '78 Southern sojourn cooked up by, who else, Malcolm McLaren.

They never would have exploded as they did without Malcolm, but a prick and a con man without peer.

I wonder if that tour helped inspire this insanity 2 years later

 

[GordonHowe]

I wonder if that tour helped inspire this insanity 2 years later

Never a fan of the movie, but they openend for James Taylor (!) at Pine Knob, in MIchigan, in '78. Good stuff.

 

[Blowfish]

The infamous '78 Southern sojourn cooked up by, who else, Malcolm McLaren.

They never would have exploded as they did without Malcolm, but a prick and a con man without peer.

The tour's final show took place at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom, and we all know what happened there, and thereafter,

US tour and break-up[edit]​

In January 1978, the Sex Pistols embarked on a US tour, consisting mainly of dates in America's Deep South. Originally scheduled to begin a few days before New Year's, it was delayed due to American authorities' reluctance to issue visas to band members with criminal records. Several dates in the North had to be cancelled as a result.[153][162] Though highly anticipated by fans and media, the tour was plagued by in-fighting, poor planning and physically belligerent audiences. McLaren later admitted that he purposely booked redneck bars to provoke hostile situations.[112] Over the course of the two weeks, Vicious, by now heavily addicted to heroin,[163] began to live up to his stage name. "He finally had an audience of people who would behave with shock and horror", Lydon later wrote. "Sid was easily led by the nose."[164]

Early in the tour, Vicious wandered off from his Holiday Inn in Memphis, looking for drugs. When he was ultimately found, he received a beating from the security team hired by Warner Bros., the band's American label.[165] He subsequently appeared with the words "Gimme a fix" on his chest—accounts vary as to whether the words were written or carved there.[166] During a concert in San Antonio, Vicious called the crowd "a bunch of Homophobic Slurs", before striking an audience member across the head with his bass guitar.[163] In Baton Rouge, he received simulated oral sex on stage, later declaring "that's the kind of girl I like".[167] Suffering from heroin withdrawal during a show in Dallas, he spat blood at a woman who had climbed onstage and punched him in the face.[164] He was admitted to hospital later that night to treat various injuries. Offstage he is said to have kicked a photographer, attacked a security guard, and eventually challenged one of his own bodyguards to a fight—beaten up, he is reported to have exclaimed, "I like you. Now we can be friends."[116]

"No Fun"
0:17
Sample of "No Fun", a cover version of the Stooges song—studio recording from 1976 or 1977

---

Problems playing this file? See media help.
Rotten, meanwhile, suffering from flu[168] and coughing up blood, felt increasingly isolated from Cook and Jones, and disgusted by Vicious.[169] Steve Jones and Paul Cook “couldn’t stand being around Johnny and Sid anymore. You couldn’t turn round for a minute without Sid starting a fight … Then on top of that you had Rotten, who was on his own trip and basically thought he was God by that stage.”[170]

On 14 January 1978, during the tour's final date at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, a disillusioned Rotten introduced the band's encore saying, "You'll get one number and one number only 'cause I'm a lazy bastard." That one number was a Stooges cover, "No Fun". At the end of the song, Rotten, kneeling on the stage, chanted an unambiguous declaration, "This is no fun. No fun. This is no fun—at all. No fun." As the final cymbal crash died away, Rotten addressed the audience directly—"Ah-ha-ha. Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Good night"—before throwing down his microphone and walking offstage.[171] He later observed, "I felt cheated, and I wasn't going on with it any longer; it was a ridiculous farce. Sid was completely out of his brains—just a waste of space. The whole thing was a joke at that point.... [Malcolm] wouldn't speak to me.... He would not discuss anything with me. But then he would turn around and tell Paul and Steve that the tension was all my fault because I wouldn't agree to anything."[172]

On 17 January, the band made their way separately to Los Angeles. McLaren, Cook and Jones prepared to fly to Rio de Janeiro for a working vacation. Vicious, in increasingly bad shape, was taken to Los Angeles by a friend, who then brought him to New York, where he was immediately hospitalised.[173] Rotten flew to New York, where he announced the band's break-up in a newspaper interview on 18 January.[174] Virtually broke, he telephoned the head of Virgin Records, Richard Branson, who agreed to pay for his flight back to London, via Jamaica. In Jamaica, Branson met with members of the band Devo, and tried to install Rotten as their lead singer. Devo declined the offer,[175] which Rotten also found unappealing.[176]

Cook, Jones and Vicious never performed together again live after Rotten's departure. Over the next several months, McLaren arranged for recordings in Brazil (with Jones and Cook), Paris (with Vicious) and London; each of the three and others stepped in as lead vocalists on tracks that in some cases were far from what punk was expected to sound like. These recordings were to make up the musical soundtrack for the reconceived Pistols feature film project, directed by Julien Temple, to which McLaren was now devoting himself. On 30 June, a single credited to the Sex Pistols was released: on one side, notorious criminal Ronnie Biggs sang "No One Is Innocent" accompanied by Jones and Cook; on the other, Vicious sang the classic "My Way", over both a Jones–Cook backing track and a string orchestra.[177] The single reached number seven on the charts, eventually outselling all the singles with which Rotten was involved.[178] McLaren was seeking to reconstitute the band with a permanent new frontman, but Vicious—McLaren's first choice—had sickened of him. In return for agreeing to record "My Way", Vicious had demanded that McLaren sign a sheet of paper declaring that he was no longer Vicious's manager. In August, Vicious, back in London, delivered his final performances as a nominal Sex Pistol: recording and filming cover versions of two Eddie Cochran songs. The bassist's return to New York in September put an end to McLaren's dreaming.[179]

Deaths of Spungen and Vicious[edit]​

After leaving the Pistols, Johnny Rotten reverted to his birth name of Lydon, and formed Public Image Ltd. (PiL) with the former Clash member Keith Levene and school friend Jah Wobble.[180] The band went on to score a UK top-ten hit with their debut single, 1978's "Public Image". Lydon initiated legal proceedings against McLaren and the Sex Pistols' management company, Glitterbest, which McLaren controlled. Among the claims were non-payment of royalties, improper usage of the title "Johnny Rotten", unfair contractual obligations,[181] and damages for "all the criminal activities that took place".[182] In 1979, PiL recorded the post-punk classic Metal Box. Lydon performed with the band through 1992, as well as engaging in other projects such as Time Zone with Afrika Bambaataa and Bill Laswell.

Vicious, relocated in New York, began performing as a solo artist, with Nancy Spungen acting as his manager. He recorded a live album, Sid Sings, backed by the Idols, featuring Arthur Kane and Jerry Nolan of the New York Dolls; it was released in 1979. On 12 October 1978, Spungen was found dead in the Hotel Chelsea room she was sharing with Vicious, with a stab wound to her stomach[183] and dressed only in her underwear.[184] Police recovered drug paraphernalia from the scene and Vicious was arrested and charged with her murder. In an interview at the time, McLaren said, "I can't believe he was involved in such a thing. Sid was set to marry Nancy in New York. He was very close to her and had quite a passionate affair with her."[184] The actor and heroin dealer Rockets Redglare, who delivered pills to the apartment, has been mentioned as a possible alternative to Vicious as Spungen's killer.[185]

While free on bail, Vicious smashed a beer mug in the face of Patti Smith's brother Todd Smith, and was arrested again on an assault charge. On 9 December 1978 he was sent to Rikers Island jail, where he spent 55 days and underwent enforced cold-turkey detox. He was released on 1 February 1979; some time after midnight, following a small party to celebrate his release, Vicious died of a heroin overdose.[186] He was twenty-one years old. Reflecting on the event, Lydon said, "Poor Sid. The only way he could live up to what he wanted everyone to believe about him was to die. That was tragic, but more for Sid than anyone else. He really bought his public image."[187]

Thanks for sharing...Anyone familiar with Neil Young will know one of his songs includes the words "Johnny Rotten". "The King is gone but not forgotten, Johnny Rotten, Johnny Rotten" - Apparently can be linked to the death of Elvis in 1977 and how Rotten was the new face of music for the months that followed.


They might seem poles apart, but Neil Young and Johnny Rotten have far more in common than you’d think. While their sonic sensibilities are on opposite sides of the rock ‘n’ roll spectrum, with the Sex Pistols’ high-octane brand of punk casting sneering looks at Young’s folk balladry from across the great divide, both Rotten and Young have always regarded music with the same kind of reverence; treating it as an essential aspect of societal development and political upset.

When Rotten burst onto the scene with Sex Pistols, he made his raison d’etre perfectly clear: he was here to destroy. By the mid-1970s, the hippie idealism of the countercultural age had been reduced to its most superficial aspects – the optimism that had once motivated young people to take to the street and seek change replaced by contentment and entitlement.


All around him, Rotten saw apathy and placidity. Nowhere were these traits more noticeable than in the world of music, where the leading figures of the rock ‘n’ roll age had grown fat on their own bloated egos. Like Rotten, Young never had much time for the posturing of his contemporaries, so when the likes of Sex Pistols came stumbling through the metaphorical door, outing members of rock establishment for the sluggish oafs they were, he found himself quietly applauding their efforts.

After the punk age dissolved, crushed by its own destructive sensibilities, Young looked back on the essential role Johnny Rotten had played in revitalising the world of rock ‘n’ roll: “I never met Johnny Rotten, but I like what he did to people,” he began. “He pissed off a lot of people who I think needed waking up. Rock ‘n’ roll people, who in the Seventies were asleep and thinking they were just so f***ing cool and they knew what had to happen. They were telling me why don’t you make a real record.”

For Young, the brilliance of Rotten was that he bought music back to the bare essentials, trimming away the glamour and excess that had come to define the rock scene to leave a lean cut of pure musical expression. In this sense, Rotten helped to bring music back to the “four chords and the truth” mentality that Young and other folk musicians of the early ’60s had lived and breathed.

“People became aware that there was more to it than perfection and overdubs, and f***ing equipment and limousines back and forth to Studio B, and the other group down the hall and getting high in the bathroom with the other group that’s going in and singing on their record,” Young recalled with no small hint of disgust. “That’s not intense enough for me”

 

[Blowfish]

RIP Mr Beck.

 

[aguineapig]

Yardbirds were my favorite British Invasion band with Roger the Engineer and Jeff Beck. Held the unofficial record for the longest held note on this.



With a little help from his friends.



With Rod and Ronnie Wood



Stevie Wonder gave this song to Jeff Beck for his playing on Talking Book. Stevie's manager heard it and knew it was a hit and had him record it as well.



Take the Freeway one last time.

 

[GordonHowe]

Thanks for sharing...Anyone familiar with Neil Young will know one of his songs includes the words "Johnny Rotten". "The King is gone but not forgotten, Johnny Rotten, Johnny Rotten" - Apparently can be linked to the death of Elvis in 1977 and how Rotten was the new face of music for the months that followed.


They might seem poles apart, but Neil Young and Johnny Rotten have far more in common than you’d think. While their sonic sensibilities are on opposite sides of the rock ‘n’ roll spectrum, with the Sex Pistols’ high-octane brand of punk casting sneering looks at Young’s folk balladry from across the great divide, both Rotten and Young have always regarded music with the same kind of reverence; treating it as an essential aspect of societal development and political upset.

When Rotten burst onto the scene with Sex Pistols, he made his raison d’etre perfectly clear: he was here to destroy. By the mid-1970s, the hippie idealism of the countercultural age had been reduced to its most superficial aspects – the optimism that had once motivated young people to take to the street and seek change replaced by contentment and entitlement.


All around him, Rotten saw apathy and placidity. Nowhere were these traits more noticeable than in the world of music, where the leading figures of the rock ‘n’ roll age had grown fat on their own bloated egos. Like Rotten, Young never had much time for the posturing of his contemporaries, so when the likes of Sex Pistols came stumbling through the metaphorical door, outing members of rock establishment for the sluggish oafs they were, he found himself quietly applauding their efforts.

After the punk age dissolved, crushed by its own destructive sensibilities, Young looked back on the essential role Johnny Rotten had played in revitalising the world of rock ‘n’ roll: “I never met Johnny Rotten, but I like what he did to people,” he began. “He pissed off a lot of people who I think needed waking up. Rock ‘n’ roll people, who in the Seventies were asleep and thinking they were just so f***ing cool and they knew what had to happen. They were telling me why don’t you make a real record.”

For Young, the brilliance of Rotten was that he bought music back to the bare essentials, trimming away the glamour and excess that had come to define the rock scene to leave a lean cut of pure musical expression. In this sense, Rotten helped to bring music back to the “four chords and the truth” mentality that Young and other folk musicians of the early ’60s had lived and breathed.

“People became aware that there was more to it than perfection and overdubs, and f***ing equipment and limousines back and forth to Studio B, and the other group down the hall and getting high in the bathroom with the other group that’s going in and singing on their record,” Young recalled with no small hint of disgust. “That’s not intense enough for me”

Neil and Lydon had something of a mutual admiration society.

Whatever one thinks of either, they are certainly iconoclasts, and that's the direction I prefer.

Thanks for posting, and I'm sorry to hear about young Patrice.

Be well,

M.

 

[jgatie]

I believe the line is "The King is gone but he's not forgotten. This is the story of Johnny Rotten." At least it was on Live Rust.

Similarly, my buddy used to have framed pictures of Elvis, Hendrix, and Johnny Rotten over his bed. He called it "The beginning, the middle, and the end of Rock and Roll".

 

[eightspokedb]

Blessings to Jeff Beck.....what a talent....

 

[JAD]

Nazareth
Hair Of The Dog

 

[Ladyfan]

Yardbirds were my favorite British Invasion band with Roger the Engineer and Jeff Beck. Held the unofficial record for the longest held note on this.



With a little help from his friends.



With Rod and Ronnie Wood



Stevie Wonder gave this song to Jeff Beck for his playing on Talking Book. Stevie's manager heard it and knew it was a hit and had him record it as well.



Take the Freeway one last time.

I hadn't heard that Jeff had died. He was so good.

 

[GordonHowe]

I believe the line is "The King is gone but he's not forgotten. This is the story of Johnny Rotten." At least it was on Live Rust.

Similarly, my buddy used to have framed pictures of Elvis, Hendrix, and Johnny Rotten over his bed. He called it "The beginning, the middle, and the end of Rock and Roll".

Yes. Rust Never Sleeps. 1979. A great, great record with many fine songs. If you didn't understand Neil -- to the extent that anyone can understand Neil -- that album may have come as a surprise. But Neil was punk before punk came along, as it were.

My eldest brother Greg was a huge, huge Neil fanatic. Like my father did with hockey, Greg gave me my love for Mr. Young's work.



Neil actually wrote this as a peace offering for Lynyrd Skynyrd. (If you don't know the story and want to, I'll explain.)

They rejected it.



Whenever I hear this one, I think of Stephen Stills, David Crosby, the Beach Boys and an entire generation of once good, once very good, once great musical talents who got fat, doped, listless, and/or greedy with their "farewell tour(s)" and sad inanity,



"Welfare Mothers,"



"Sedan Delivery,"



Couldn't find a fab live rendition of "Like a Hurricane" from Berlin, '82, so here's your consolation prize,