I've decided to forbear, for now, making journal entries about my current life. I don't want to write whiny and/or depressing entries, and you don't to read them. Instead I thought I might make a first installment in a series called:
Awesome Bands I Saw Back in the Day
No, seriously I'm talking waaaaaay back. Back when the quality of videos for posting on the internet was not so grate aktully, mainly because there wasn't an internet. So I hope any readers will forgive the occasional crummy video quality.
My first band may be a mild surprise to a few:
Chicago Transit Authority
Believe it or not, they used to be awesome, at least when Terry Kath was alive.
Paris 1969: Go-go dancing in that somehow quintessentially Parisian motley of colors and severe industrial stage set. Gotta love it.
I saw them in April 1970, soon after they dropped the "Transit Authority", having been threatened with legal action by the "real" CTA. I was on the front row at Carolina Coliseum. A crisp April evening, during the mellow days shortly before the Cambodian Invasion/Kent State cataclysm when our campus and so many others erupted in violence and paranoia. Chicago was, to my mind, the best of the formally-trained college boy ensembles, mainly because they had a hard rock edge, were socially conscious, and... they had Terry Kath.
The core of the band were classically trained musicians from DePaul University. The sound of the brass/woodwinds were idenfiably of the "California jazz/fusion" genre and of course they eventually relocated to LA. But the addition of Kath to their tight, musically adept sound was just amazing. Terry was, unlike the others, a musical auto-didact. Couldn't read a note of music. Played by sound and feel, and mastered the potential of the Stratocaster. I think all of these things were probably why he was so admired by Jimi Hendrix. Like Jimi, he was an instinctual musician, a pure musical genius, who was exploring many of the same soundscapes and technology of the electric guitar of that period. I was told the story, by trusted sources, of how Terry and Jimi were jamming one night and Jimi finally was forced to leave the stage, grinning and shaking his head. He'd been bested. A corollary to that story is that Terry Kath had been able to score better drugs than Jimi and so that gave him an edge. True or not, the kid from Chicago was damn good. He was a bit of raw meat in a group of largely polished players, wearing the usual half sleeve jersey and missing cues during the songs. But it didn't matter. He was a master.
This is their remaking of a song by another wunderkind of that period, Steve Winwood:
They were all great musicians. Neither of these videos really captured the vituosity of drummer Danny Seraphine, who I think was(is?) probably one of the half dozen greatest drummers in rock music. Were they "socially conscious"? They were of their time. Chicago in 1968 was, well, Chicago in 1968. It was their home turf. Maybe you've heard of Grant Park? Or the Democratic Party Convention? Yippies? Google it. It's interesting that the Chicago band is still with us today, but with not a single member of the original group. The original seven (eight, counting their manager/guru type guy) enclosed the words of their anti-war anthem "It Better End Soon" in the jacket of album #2 with these words:
"With this album, we dedicate ourselves, our futures and our energies to the people of the revolution... And the revolution in all its forms."
Robert Lamm
Terry Kath
Walter Parazaider
James Pankow
Lee Loughnane
Daniel Seraphine
Peter Cetera
James William Guercio
Revolution or no, the impression I left with that April night was of seven guys who were joyous in doing what they loved, and were phenomenally gifted at - the making of music. And after all, isn't true art revolutionary?
With the accidental death of Terry Kath and other personnel changes, this group morphed gradually into the mainstream pop soft rock ballads group that is still played ad nauseum in dentists' offices. It's impossible to tune out this travesty completely, but I try. I'd rather remember the summer of 1970 - when their first two albums were the virtual soundtrack of many of my days. Some of the songs from I and II recall to my mind and sensations certain *cough*pleasurable*cough* activities that might fit well into... another kind of journal.
Awesome Bands I Saw Back in the Day
No, seriously I'm talking waaaaaay back. Back when the quality of videos for posting on the internet was not so grate aktully, mainly because there wasn't an internet. So I hope any readers will forgive the occasional crummy video quality.
My first band may be a mild surprise to a few:
Chicago Transit Authority
Believe it or not, they used to be awesome, at least when Terry Kath was alive.
Paris 1969: Go-go dancing in that somehow quintessentially Parisian motley of colors and severe industrial stage set. Gotta love it.
I saw them in April 1970, soon after they dropped the "Transit Authority", having been threatened with legal action by the "real" CTA. I was on the front row at Carolina Coliseum. A crisp April evening, during the mellow days shortly before the Cambodian Invasion/Kent State cataclysm when our campus and so many others erupted in violence and paranoia. Chicago was, to my mind, the best of the formally-trained college boy ensembles, mainly because they had a hard rock edge, were socially conscious, and... they had Terry Kath.
The core of the band were classically trained musicians from DePaul University. The sound of the brass/woodwinds were idenfiably of the "California jazz/fusion" genre and of course they eventually relocated to LA. But the addition of Kath to their tight, musically adept sound was just amazing. Terry was, unlike the others, a musical auto-didact. Couldn't read a note of music. Played by sound and feel, and mastered the potential of the Stratocaster. I think all of these things were probably why he was so admired by Jimi Hendrix. Like Jimi, he was an instinctual musician, a pure musical genius, who was exploring many of the same soundscapes and technology of the electric guitar of that period. I was told the story, by trusted sources, of how Terry and Jimi were jamming one night and Jimi finally was forced to leave the stage, grinning and shaking his head. He'd been bested. A corollary to that story is that Terry Kath had been able to score better drugs than Jimi and so that gave him an edge. True or not, the kid from Chicago was damn good. He was a bit of raw meat in a group of largely polished players, wearing the usual half sleeve jersey and missing cues during the songs. But it didn't matter. He was a master.
This is their remaking of a song by another wunderkind of that period, Steve Winwood:
They were all great musicians. Neither of these videos really captured the vituosity of drummer Danny Seraphine, who I think was(is?) probably one of the half dozen greatest drummers in rock music. Were they "socially conscious"? They were of their time. Chicago in 1968 was, well, Chicago in 1968. It was their home turf. Maybe you've heard of Grant Park? Or the Democratic Party Convention? Yippies? Google it. It's interesting that the Chicago band is still with us today, but with not a single member of the original group. The original seven (eight, counting their manager/guru type guy) enclosed the words of their anti-war anthem "It Better End Soon" in the jacket of album #2 with these words:
"With this album, we dedicate ourselves, our futures and our energies to the people of the revolution... And the revolution in all its forms."
Robert Lamm
Terry Kath
Walter Parazaider
James Pankow
Lee Loughnane
Daniel Seraphine
Peter Cetera
James William Guercio
Revolution or no, the impression I left with that April night was of seven guys who were joyous in doing what they loved, and were phenomenally gifted at - the making of music. And after all, isn't true art revolutionary?
With the accidental death of Terry Kath and other personnel changes, this group morphed gradually into the mainstream pop soft rock ballads group that is still played ad nauseum in dentists' offices. It's impossible to tune out this travesty completely, but I try. I'd rather remember the summer of 1970 - when their first two albums were the virtual soundtrack of many of my days. Some of the songs from I and II recall to my mind and sensations certain *cough*pleasurable*cough* activities that might fit well into... another kind of journal.
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*hands you the extra strength, caffeinated Robutussin*