The Daily News
1 What has happened to all the young dudes?
2 For those who don't know, the founding father of Mott the Hoople, Dale "Buffin" Griffin, passed away with Alzheimer's yesterday. He was their drummer, 67 years of age.
3 Coincidentally, their biggest hit song was the David Bowie composition All the Young Dudes.
4 Griffin was able to talk candidly to people about his battle with Alzheimer's, and was considered by many to have been a good man who wanted the Hoople to re-group after breaking up in 1980.
5 Bowie helped manage the band.
6 Strange.
7 Griffin did a lot of managing and producing throughout his career.
8 The Bowie connection is a strange coincidence. My conspiracy antennae are up. Not high enough yet, but the series' of older rock stars leaving are getting to be odd, especially at the very beginning of a new year.
9 I'll dust it off right now, not enough news nor motive.
10 Stay tuned.
11 Moving On, Part One: I brought my guitar over to Josh and Caitlin's house yesterday for the first time in a while.
12 I noodled to the Twincesses. Noodling is a guitar term for playing a bunch of stuff, fingerpicking, and seeing what sorts of sounds one can get. I got a few gorgeous chords going, completely by accident.
13 It's fun to play in either of our houses because higher ceilings provide more natural echos and reverberations. Liken it to singing in the shower; if you can sing, it always sounds better. If you can't sing, practice. A lot of it is making sure you have enough air to support the note you try to hit when your voice cracks.
14 I'm not a choir teacher, but those are things that work.
15 When Don Felder gave a lesson on how he wrote much of the music to Hotel California, he mentioned moving a capo up or down the guitar until your voice works with the song. A capo is a clip that you clamp on to the neck of your guitar to change the key. You can then use the same chord-formations and all, but you can do that without having to change everything. One of the greatest inventions in musical history, besides, naturally, myself.
16 I thank me old mate Chris Dauenhauer for that one. He posted a couple of awesome guitar lessons online yesterday. Almost all guitar players are aware of the capo trick. If you can adjust a song to your voice, your singing will improve dramatically. Last I looked, you can't make that simple of an adjustment on other instruments. The secret is to find good You Tube lessons. You have to kiss a lot of toads with that one, but the rewards: better music.
17 And you find yourself suddenly singing.
18 Thank you, Sir Chris, for fostering the art of singing. And no, I am not one of the greatest inventions in musical history. I'm good at faking songs. That's about all I can say.
19 Moving On, Part Two: Great day. It is quite the great day when you are singing, and enjoying.
20 I am officially sure that the new century is in good hands.
21 Our generation scared the remainder of the world with our constant fear of the Man.
22 I look into the eyes of lil' Maren and lil' Isla and I see nothing but pure love.
23 This assures me that life is but a dream.
24 Sh-Boom.
25 Moving On, Part the The Thoid: The history of Rock 'n' Roll is fraught with fears beyond imagination. It's understood at this point, that all could be gone in a millisecond.
26 A lot of early rock music came from the bombings and terror that happened towards the end of World War II.
27 I have analyzed this every which way and could conclude only that my generation lived in such extreme fear that we over-worried.
28 All apologies.
29 Allow me to counter, at least for a second here.
30 The world will not end that way. Ever.
31 I'm pretty sure anybody, any family who has little babies knows now that much of that stupidity and fear was manufactured by lunatics who are no longer taken seriously.
32 As an old alarmist, I look into the eyes of my beautiful grandchildren and see massive love and smiles that must be happening to bazillions of parents and grandparents out there, people who know that it is time to build lasting peace.
33 We don't want a madman's finger on the trigger.
34 Personally, I wanted the younger generation to be aware that miscreants and turds assassinated JFK, and that the world had gone mad.
35 Nobody listened. It was the great unspeakable.
36 It is becoming mainstream, but almost at a the speed of a wildfire.
37 End it. You now know. Glen Frey wrote the lyrics to Take it Easy.
38 It is time to do that. I know there are people out there who don't look to the Eagles as anything but a syrupy band. I enjoyed playing a few of their tunes, because a lot of people know those songs. The passing of Glen Frey put a guitar back in my hand, a definite threat to the world as we know it. I thought of other songs that might be nice for kids.
I learned Crosby, Stills, and Nash's Teach Your Children as a generational cross-over song years ago. I think the concept is a simple one. I mentioned at the beginning of the week that I wanted to write a song a day. That altered. It bent fiercely, but it never broke. I might change that to "I think I'll work on songs that are healthy for children." That's nicer. Fear not, I'll still come at you with some good ol' in-yo-face rock. I just think the world needs to slow itself down, and look at the brighter side of things.
39 But remain creative.
40 I will now step gently down from my soap box.
41 Every now and again I turn to poetry, just to give me a lift, and to remind me of one of my favorite forms of writing. In the under-rated Simon and Garfunkel tune The Dangling Conversation, Paul Simon created this line:
And you read your Emily Dickinson,
and I my Robert Frost. And we note our place with book markers, that measure what we've lost.
42 Last year I put this out there. I know it is overdone, but I turn this morning to Robert Frost, and leave you with The Road Not Taken. Give it some thought.
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden back,
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
45 Not the first sharing in the DN, nor will it be the last. Hence, and hence, and hence.
46 Shed a tear, and save the world for our children.
47 And for our grandchildren.
48 And for our great-grandchildren. And on and on.
49 Love.
50 I gottago.
51 Believe in a better world.
52 See you again.
53 Peace.
5 Bowie helped manage the band.
6 Strange.
7 Griffin did a lot of managing and producing throughout his career.
8 The Bowie connection is a strange coincidence. My conspiracy antennae are up. Not high enough yet, but the series' of older rock stars leaving are getting to be odd, especially at the very beginning of a new year.
10 Stay tuned.
11 Moving On, Part One: I brought my guitar over to Josh and Caitlin's house yesterday for the first time in a while.
12 I noodled to the Twincesses. Noodling is a guitar term for playing a bunch of stuff, fingerpicking, and seeing what sorts of sounds one can get. I got a few gorgeous chords going, completely by accident.
13 It's fun to play in either of our houses because higher ceilings provide more natural echos and reverberations. Liken it to singing in the shower; if you can sing, it always sounds better. If you can't sing, practice. A lot of it is making sure you have enough air to support the note you try to hit when your voice cracks.
14 I'm not a choir teacher, but those are things that work.
15 When Don Felder gave a lesson on how he wrote much of the music to Hotel California, he mentioned moving a capo up or down the guitar until your voice works with the song. A capo is a clip that you clamp on to the neck of your guitar to change the key. You can then use the same chord-formations and all, but you can do that without having to change everything. One of the greatest inventions in musical history, besides, naturally, myself.
16 I thank me old mate Chris Dauenhauer for that one. He posted a couple of awesome guitar lessons online yesterday. Almost all guitar players are aware of the capo trick. If you can adjust a song to your voice, your singing will improve dramatically. Last I looked, you can't make that simple of an adjustment on other instruments. The secret is to find good You Tube lessons. You have to kiss a lot of toads with that one, but the rewards: better music.
17 And you find yourself suddenly singing.
18 Thank you, Sir Chris, for fostering the art of singing. And no, I am not one of the greatest inventions in musical history. I'm good at faking songs. That's about all I can say.
19 Moving On, Part Two: Great day. It is quite the great day when you are singing, and enjoying.
20 I am officially sure that the new century is in good hands.
21 Our generation scared the remainder of the world with our constant fear of the Man.
22 I look into the eyes of lil' Maren and lil' Isla and I see nothing but pure love.
23 This assures me that life is but a dream.
24 Sh-Boom.
25 Moving On, Part the The Thoid: The history of Rock 'n' Roll is fraught with fears beyond imagination. It's understood at this point, that all could be gone in a millisecond.
26 A lot of early rock music came from the bombings and terror that happened towards the end of World War II.
27 I have analyzed this every which way and could conclude only that my generation lived in such extreme fear that we over-worried.
28 All apologies.
29 Allow me to counter, at least for a second here.
30 The world will not end that way. Ever.
31 I'm pretty sure anybody, any family who has little babies knows now that much of that stupidity and fear was manufactured by lunatics who are no longer taken seriously.
32 As an old alarmist, I look into the eyes of my beautiful grandchildren and see massive love and smiles that must be happening to bazillions of parents and grandparents out there, people who know that it is time to build lasting peace.
33 We don't want a madman's finger on the trigger.
34 Personally, I wanted the younger generation to be aware that miscreants and turds assassinated JFK, and that the world had gone mad.
35 Nobody listened. It was the great unspeakable.
36 It is becoming mainstream, but almost at a the speed of a wildfire.
37 End it. You now know. Glen Frey wrote the lyrics to Take it Easy.
38 It is time to do that. I know there are people out there who don't look to the Eagles as anything but a syrupy band. I enjoyed playing a few of their tunes, because a lot of people know those songs. The passing of Glen Frey put a guitar back in my hand, a definite threat to the world as we know it. I thought of other songs that might be nice for kids.
I learned Crosby, Stills, and Nash's Teach Your Children as a generational cross-over song years ago. I think the concept is a simple one. I mentioned at the beginning of the week that I wanted to write a song a day. That altered. It bent fiercely, but it never broke. I might change that to "I think I'll work on songs that are healthy for children." That's nicer. Fear not, I'll still come at you with some good ol' in-yo-face rock. I just think the world needs to slow itself down, and look at the brighter side of things.
39 But remain creative.
40 I will now step gently down from my soap box.
41 Every now and again I turn to poetry, just to give me a lift, and to remind me of one of my favorite forms of writing. In the under-rated Simon and Garfunkel tune The Dangling Conversation, Paul Simon created this line:
And you read your Emily Dickinson,
and I my Robert Frost. And we note our place with book markers, that measure what we've lost.
42 Last year I put this out there. I know it is overdone, but I turn this morning to Robert Frost, and leave you with The Road Not Taken. Give it some thought.
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden back,
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
45 Not the first sharing in the DN, nor will it be the last. Hence, and hence, and hence.
46 Shed a tear, and save the world for our children.
47 And for our grandchildren.
48 And for our great-grandchildren. And on and on.
49 Love.
50 I gottago.
51 Believe in a better world.
52 See you again.
53 Peace.
~H~
fin.
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