Posts tagged ‘london’

“I’m flying, across the ocean and I’m soaring…” (a rock & roll trip around the world)

“I’m flying, across the ocean and I’m soaring…back home to the place I was born and properly raised.”

 There is nothing like a song that delivers exactly what it promises. Some songs just flat-out tell you, “Hey, this is how it’s gonna be”: ” we’re gonna play our asses off, you’re gonna listen and you’re gonna get what’s coming to you. That’s right…we’re gonna cut through; we’re gonna hit the mark; we’re gonna deliver the goods”.

Right now, I am 36,000 feet in the air, hanging above the Atlantic Ocean and yes, I am soaring back home to the place where I was born and properly raised.

OK, let’s be fair here, no song actually makes any promises (well, except, maybe this one). I tell you, though, when I listen to “Flying” by The Faces, hot damn, I’m airborne. The song starts somewhere in the distance, barely audible, and it builds, as if it is about to buckle up and rumble down the runway and propel itself toward the sky. Suddenly, it does; we have lift off.

 Oh yeah, I am soaring right now…and so are Ian Mclaghan and Ronnie Wood. At 2:50 they start playing the time-honored tradition of call and response. Mclaghan lays down some thick church-chords while Ronnie volleys with some squealing, slippery slide work. About a minute later, their engines are killed softly and before you know it, the wheels down.

http://listen.grooveshark.com/songWidget.swf

Oh, I am jazzed, alright. I think I just listened to that song seven or eight times in a row. Throw in the Ronnie Wood live version with Bernard Fowler on vox and you could take it for another half-a-dozen spins. Whew.

Songs will do that to you. Sometimes you hear a song and you just hear it. Sometime you feel a song and you feel it. Right about now, three hours out of Boston, MA, I am feeling it.

I’m heading back for a week of work in “the colonies”. I have been traveling back to The States often lately; granted, I am going back for work. Considering that I moved Australia in January of 2005 and never once went back to the States until December 2009, any trip back to the States feels good.

Sitting here on this plane, drinking as many Heinekens and watered down bloody mary’s as they will give me, I am thinking about the crazy, cool nomadic path that I have been on. I thought it would be trip (I’m on a roll with these puns lately) to retrace my steps in song. Hope there are a few new turn-ons for you here.

Movin’ Out – Aerosmith: “Gotta move it out ‘cause the city’s movin’ in”

Back before Stephen Tyler sold out like a Tower Records liquidation sale, Aerosmith had a pair. With one fell-swooping pen stroke, Tyler signed on as a Fox Network corporate shill and simultaneously wrote off a legacy of balls-to-the-wall rock and roll. Castrated and confused, the rest of his band mates stand in the shadows and consider giving Sammy Hagar a ring.

That’s not fair to the other guys in the band. There is no way Joe Perry will let the other shoe drop. These guys used to rock. Way back on their first album, they showed that they had the raw chops to cut the mustard.

One of their first songs that got me good is, “Movin’ Out”. I always heard this song as gut-bucket raunch. It is a raunchy, grinding rocker and it has that foot-stomp-y sing a long element to it. Tyler’s vocal creeps and croaks out start ‘er off, the band kicks up a shit-storm of chunky riffs until Tyler steps to the front again with that smokey vocal set on that swirly guitar sound and then the band locks the groove again and takes it on home.

Home. Boston was the place my wife and I called home before we left for Florida. We met there, we got married while we lived there (we got married in the Dominica Republic), we broke bread there. I remember playing this song over and over while we packed up our stuff.

Mainline Florida – Eric Clapton: “My heart was leapin’ in the sun. My friends all say you’re the one.”

This song comes from Clapton’s “461 Ocean Blvd”. I first heard this record freshman year in college. I couldn’t stop listening to “Motherless Child”. The slide guitar work in that song shook my bones. Sure, I had heard slide guitar before, but I never really listened to it. I had no choice when I heard Clapton ringing the bell.

That rolling and tumbling lick kicks things off and then, WHAMO! The slide starts cutting like a ginsu knife. SHIT! I still get the chicken skin when I hear it. Plus, Clapton sounded so lonely on that vocal; the slide seemed like it was him weeping. Corny, I know…but that is what I heard.

Also, check out this sick, sick version with Clapton, Doyle Bramhall and Derek Trucks. Three things to note when watching this video: Truck is not (?!) playing slide on this, Steve Jordan is playing the drums like a smokestack lightening train barreling down the tracks and Clapton officially needs someone to surround himself with someone to push his playing)

I digress. The song that closes that album is, “Do the Mainline”. I remember making a “Going Down South” CD mix for our move (circa ’02) and I put this song on it. I had lived in New England all my life. Until I got out of there, I had no idea how conservative it was…well, compared to Florida. I remember thinking, shit, I’ve got to start spreading myself thin and experience more scenes and surroundings.

Little did I know…

Khe-Sahn – Cold Chisel: “The last train outta Sydney’s almost gone!”

We lived in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for just about three years. Near the end we bought our first house. It was right when the housing boom was at it’s peak. We owned it for just seven months. We had one eye on settling down and growing roots and one eye on the horizon. The time just wasn’t right for settling down or settling at all. We found ourselves a (corporate) ride to Sydney, Australia. Buy the ticket, take the ride. Damn straight.

We found a buyer for our house in just three days. I stuck a sign on the front lawn and the parade of people came marching in. Again, remember, this is right before the market tanked. The “Lucky Country” was already working it’s magic on us.

Our Aussie experience is an entire blog itself. So many great memories, great times and great people. The Aussies have the right idea: play hard, play hard, work hard. Usually when we played, music was front and center. There are so many cool Aussie bands to talk about, but on in particular rings true for me: Cold Chisel. Their lead singer, Jimmy Barnes (“Barnsey”) could party as much as he could sing and he did both in extraordinary fashion.

One of Cold Chisel’s most known and loved song is, “Khe-Sahn”. When I think of great times in Sydney in cramped pubs or in the hot Aussie sun, drinking ice-cold Aussie beers with a bunch of fun-loving, life loving Aussies, I think of this song.

I can’t count how many times this song came out of the speakers and incited a mass sing-a-long. Oh shit, there is goes again: the chicken skin.

Real, live chicken skin…

When Barnsey starts in on that line, “well, the last train outta Sydney…”, everyone starts raising glasses, back slapping and singing at the tops of their lungs. Hot damn. Sydney is a special place.

I am giving you a solo Jimmy Barnes performance. This is a typical crowd response to this tune: rowdy, proud, fist-pumping, sing-a-longs.

Here is the studio version of Khe Sahn.

http://listen.grooveshark.com/songWidget.swf

I’m Trying to Make London My Home – Sonny Boy Williamson: “Because the people back in my country just don’t know what is going on”.

OK, that is not entirely true. Ol’ Sonny Boy was playing up to the crowd when he and the rest of the blues legends toured in ’62-’65. I will say that I would encourage more Americans to live outside the country if they can. I’ve learned a hell of a lot about myself and my country by being on the outside looking in…a lot. We’re in London now. I’m not sure that we will live here permanently, but I would certainly consider it.

(nice vid from its creator)

Why? Hey, I’m no turncoat, but London is an exciting place to live: the history, the proximity to all of Europe for travel, the culture, the music scene. It’s also just a short plane ride back to my old stomping grounds… 

Promised Land – Johnnie Allan “Tell folks back home this is the promised land calling, poor boy’s on the line”

There are cover songs and then there are versions of songs that leaves the original in the dust. This version “Promised Land” has the Chuck Berry original staring at a pair of fading tail lights. Give Chuck his due; he wrote it, but Johnnie Allan owns it. I play this every time I am flying back home.

The song has the “poor boy” trying to make it to the left coast. He encountered a slew of obstacles within his travels, but he kept on persevering and made it out Cal-i-forn-i-a. Oddly enough, Chuck Berry wrote this song while still in prison. A little escapism, perhaps, Chuck?

Sometimes I feel like the “poor boy”. There has been a lot of traveling in the last eight years. There have been many unforgettable experiences along the way and a few obstacles, too. There is one thing I have learned with all this traveling: the “promised land” doesn’t have to be California or any place in particular. It is where ever you want it to be.