The Rock 'n' Roll Diaries

The Rock 'n' Roll Diaries

Roadkill

[	userinfo	\|	livejournal userinfo	]
[	archive	\|	journal archive	]

(no subject)	[Feb. 10th, 2008\|08:30 pm]
life is good. my girl is awesome. my baby is amazing. my friends are incredible. and work is tolerable. therefore, life is good. time to watch rock of love 2.
Link	1 comment\|Leave a comment

It's a girl!	[Jun. 26th, 2007\|04:21 pm]
well we had a sonogram yesterday and found out that the baby is a girl. madison marie cetra is due on november 24... i cant wait. she is gonna be so adorable. in other news, my bike is finally fixed so anybody that wants to check out some trails around town gimme a buzz or we can cruise the streets. let me know.
Link	5 comments\|Leave a comment

Bono has his shit together...	[Dec. 8th, 2004\|12:16 am]
Elvis Presley By Bono By: Bono - Mar 26, 2004 Source: Rolling Stone Out of Tupelo, Mississippi, out of Memphis, Tennessee, came this green, sharkskin-suited girl chaser, wearing eye shadow -- a trucker-dandy white boy who must have risked his hide to act so black and dress so gay. This wasn't New York or even New Orleans; this was Memphis in the Fifties. This was punk rock. This was revolt. Elvis changed everything -- musically, sexually, politically. In Elvis, you had the whole lot; it's all there in that elastic voice and body. As he changed shape, so did the world: He was a Fifties-style icon who was what the Sixties were capable of, and then suddenly not. In the Seventies, he turned celebrity into a blood sport, but interestingly, the more he fell to Earth, the more godlike he became to his fans. His last performances showcase a voice even bigger than his gut, where you cry real tears as the music messiah sings his tired heart out, turning casino into temple. In Elvis, you have the blueprint for rock & roll: The highness -- the gospel highs. The mud -- the Delta mud, the blues. Sexual liberation. Controversy. Changing the way people feel about the world. It's all there with Elvis. I was barely conscious when I saw the '68 comeback special, at eight years old -- which was probably an advantage. I hadn't the critical faculties to divide the different Elvises into different categories or sort through the contradictions. Pretty much everything I want from guitar, bass and drums was present: a performer annoyed by the distance from his audience; a persona that made a prism of fame's wide-angle lens; a sexuality matched only by a thirst for God's instruction. But it's that elastic spastic dance that is the most difficult to explain -- hips that swivel from Europe to Africa, which is the whole point of America, I guess. For an Irish boy, the voice might have explained the sexiness of the U.S.A., but the dance explained the energy of this new world about to boil over and scald the rest of us with new ideas on race, religion, fashion, love and peace. These were ideas bigger than the man who would break the ice for them, ideas that would later confound the man who took the Anglo-Saxon stiff upper lip and curled it forever. He was "Elvis the Pelvis," with one hand on the blues terminal and the other on the gospel, which is the essence of rock & roll, a lightning flash running along his spine, electroshock therapy for a generation about to refuse numbness, both male and female, black and white. I recently met with Coretta Scott King, John Lewis and some of the other leaders of the American civil-rights movement, and they reminded me of the cultural apartheid rock & roll was up against. I think the hill they climbed would have been much steeper were it not for the racial inroads black music was making on white pop culture. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival were all introduced to the blues through Elvis. He was already doing what the civil-rights movement was demanding: breaking down barriers. You don't think of Elvis as political, but that is politics: changing the way people see the world. In the Eighties, U2 went to Memphis, to Sun Studio -- the scene of rock & roll's big bang. We were working with Elvis' engineer and music diviner, Cowboy Jack Clement. He reopened the studio so we could cut some tracks within the same four walls where Elvis recorded "Mystery Train." He found the old valve microphone the King had howled through; the reverb was the same reverb: "Train I ride, sixteen coaches long." It was a small tunnel of a place, but there was a certain clarity to the sound. You can hear it in those Sun records, and they are the ones for me -- leanness but not meanness. The King didn't know he was the King yet. It's haunted, hunted, spooky music. Elvis doesn't know where the train will take him, and that's why we want to be passengers. Jerry Schilling, the only one of the Memphis Mafia not to sell him out, told me a story about when he used to live at Graceland, down by the squash courts. He had a little room there, and he said that when Elvis was upset and feeling out of kilter, he would leave the big house and go down to his little gym, where there was a piano. With no one else around, his choice would always be gospel, losing and finding himself in the old spirituals. He was happiest when he was singing his way back to spiritual safety. But he didn't stay long enough. Self-loathing was waiting back up at the house, where Elvis was seen shooting at his TV screens, the Bible open beside him at St. Paul's great ode to love, Corinthians 13. Elvis clearly didn't believe God's grace was amazing enough. Some commentators say it was the Army, others say it was Hollywood or Las Vegas that broke his spirit. The rock & roll world certainly didn't like to see their King doing what he was told. I think it was probably much more likely his marriage or his mother -- or a finer fracture from earlier on, like losing his twin brother, Jesse, at birth. Maybe it was just the big arse of fame sitting on him. I think the Vegas period is underrated. I find it the most emotional. By that point Elvis was clearly not in control of his own life, and there is this incredible pathos. The big opera voice of the later years -- that's the one that really hurts me. Why is it that we want our idols to die on a cross of their own making, and if they don't, we want our money back? But you know, Elvis ate America before America ate him. © Copyright 2003 by Elvis Australia
Link	Leave a comment

so true, so true

[Nov. 18th, 2004|12:29 am]

[	Current Mood	\|	accomplished	]
[	Current Music	\|	still The Cheats	]

"I just like to smile; smiling is my favorite." - Will Ferrel in ELF

Link

Leave a comment

did you ever...

[Nov. 9th, 2004|09:57 am]

[	Current Mood	\|	nardly	]
[	Current Music	\|	The Rezillos- Somebody's Gonna get their head kicked in	]

just wanna yell the word "NARDS!" as loud as you can?

Link

1 comment|Leave a comment

Happy Birthday, Rock 'n' Roll!

[Jul. 5th, 2004|11:43 am]

[	Current Mood	\|	My nads feel rocked.	]
[	Current Music	\|	Elvis' Golden Records	]

When i was 10 years old, I was at Kmart with my dad. He told me i could get one toy, but that's not what I wanted. Under the influence of Uncle Jesse(i know kinda lame), I picked up a $2.99 cassette called Elvis' Golden Records. When i got home i couldnt wait to listen to it. I put it in the stereo and pressed play. A chill ran down my spine as i heard the opening line to "Hound Dog." Elvis' voice growled from the stereo. The emotion swelled from the speakers as Mr. Presley tore through song after song. I listened to side A in utter amazement of what i had discovered. Song after song filled with joy and heartache, love and desperation, and all of it complimented my the perfect pitch of a working class boy from Memphis, TN. I turned the tape over, and the upbeat heartbreak of "Don't Be Cruel" blasted out of the speakers. By the time i reached the final song on the tape, I knew that this had changed my life. I was too young to understand how or why, but i knew that Rock 'N' Roll was freedom and happiness. Now 10 years later, as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Elvis Presley recording "That's Alright Mama" at Sun Studios in Memphis, and as we celebrate the 50th Birthday of Rock 'N' Roll, I ask everyone to tip their hats and raise their glasses to the man and the music that changed the world. Happy Birthday, Rock 'n' Roll, and may you celebrate many more. Thank you, Mr. Presley, Thank you very much.

Link

1 comment|Leave a comment

KABLAM!	[Apr. 9th, 2004\|01:01 pm]
151 + fire = AWESOME i honestly thought i didn't have eyebrows anymore
Link	Leave a comment

i havent posted in forever...

[Apr. 5th, 2004|10:16 pm]

[	Current Mood	\|	bored	]
[	Current Music	\|	Ready Teddy- Elvis Presley	]

so here goes:

wednesday:
worked with JP and Erin, we set up all kidns of april fools' jokes for chris and gary when they openned in the morning... these pranks included hiding the coffee maker and putting an open can of tuna in the safe...

thursday:
went to school... came home to an incredibly angry message from chris on our answering machine... then erin and i picked joey up from work... we ate at wendy's and then we were on our way to Buffalo... we listend to rancid and nofx the whole way there... it was cool... got there at about 830 and Zachus Christ was nowhere to be foundbut his roomie let us in... zach finally returned from sum poetry reading and he was already drunk... we headed to his friend clark's house where we drank 40s... then we went to see this rockin blues band at this bar... where we drank sum more... then we ate greasy sandwiches at Jim's and it was awesome... then i was like "lets go to canada" and we totally did... we accidently drove on sum walkways on the american side of the falls... we finally made it to canada where we ate at denny's (much better than those in the states)... we made friends with the waitress... she was cool... then the border guard was being shady about lettin us back into the U.S., but we finally made it back in and then next thing i know i wake up outside zach's dorm...

Friday:
we woke up and ate wings then drove back to pittsburgh... it took 8 hours coz we stopped alot.. i bought a hatchet and a pair of boots in grove city... then we practiced and painted the drums until the wee hours of saturday morning... they came out real sleazy pink with a glittery keystone on the head that reads "sleaze."

Saturday:
we woke up and practiced sum more... then we headed to modern formations... we watched all the band splay including the Lemmiwinks, which was cool... then we played we fucked a few songs up but we recovered with shake, rattle and roll... surfin bird and silhouettes were exceptionally awesome too... it was a wild weekend... then we came home and drank from the keg erin bought...

Sunday:
I woke up and ate breakfast at e'n'p with the riz, erin, joe, alia, jake and zach... then i went to cvs and played the eatser bunny for a few hours... while erin and the riz took zach back to school...

Monday:
nothing really happened today except i took a nap... and almost slept through work but brandon woke me up... then i worked... then i came home... thats it... kinda lame

but my weekend was stellar... prob the best weekend ever...

Link