M U S I C
D e a d r o c k s t a r s
It is only few days, when I was thinking about a fact, why so much famous musicians die in the youth. The most frequent reasons of death are a suicide or a drug overdose. Their profession is so stressful, that is why they are not able to endure that pressure and they run away from depressions to a world of forgetting. These are facts, which I do not want to repeat. But many critics assert that these musicians are celebrated only for their tragic death. But I do not agree with this statement. There is a small gallery of this dead rock stars. Every one deserves his own article. So sorry, that I am going to write only their short biographies without a lot of indications.BRIAN EPSTEIN
(*19th September 1934, Liverpool- +27th August 1967, London)He was not a musician, but he was manager of many music groups. His most famous group was The Beatles. They are due to him for their success. He was Jew. He had changed many schools, when he was young, because his family moved a lot. He did not have many friends and he was a victim of anti-Semitism. He studied dramatic art, but he worked like a shop assistant in a shop with gramophone-records. He was interested in the music and he had written critics to the magazine Mersey Beat. He saw The Beatles in the Cavern Club first time and they held his interest, so he offered them his services as a manager. He found a recording company for them. And they began dress in their typical suits. He was a homosexual. But the homosexuality was punishable in the Great Britain. It was a source of his depression. He stated experiment with drugs. He died for overdosing the barbiturates on 27th August 1967. He often spoke about a suicide, so there are some guess-works, that it was a suicide.
JIMI HENDRIX
(*27th December1942, Seattle- +18th September 1970, London)He was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. It is one of the best guitarists of the rock music. He tried to connect „Earth“(support blues, jazz and funky rhythms) with „Space“(vivid psychedelic improvisations). He did not know dots, so he used colors. He left school in the age of 18 and started to play the guitar. He was an autodidact. He played with Isley Brothers, Curtis Knight... He gave rise to group The Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1966. He unintentionally overdosed himself, in London on 18th September. He died for a suffocation of vomit.
JANIS JOPLIN
(*19th January 1943, Port Artur- +4th October 1970, Los Angeles)
She was an American blues and rock singer and guitarist. She had a very fat, melodic and urgent voice. She liked to be distinct from the consumer society, but this society killed her in the end. People called her Jimi Hendrix in the skirt.
She started to play with The Waller Creek Boys and then she became a member of Big Brother & the Holding Company. Her problems with alcohol and drugs started in about 1970. She died for an overdosing with heroin. J. Joplin became the symbol of hippies and an impletion of motto: Live fast, love hard, die young.
JIM MORRISON
(*8th December 1943, Melbourne- +3rd July 1971, Paris)He was an American singer, poet and leader of the group The Doors. His father was marine officer, so he had to migrate a lot, when he was a child. He left a film academy in Los Angeles and, with Ray Manzeren, they gave rise to group The Doors. He loved poetry. He wrote his own poems and he noted his emotions and dreams every day. He believed that a rock is something like a ritual. He climbed curtains, took the plunge to crowd and changed a running of the concert all the time. He drank a lot and he used LSD. He died of the heart attack in Paris. The hypothesis, that he was overdosed, has never been acknowledged.
BON SCOTT
(*9th July 1946, Kirriemuir- +19th February 1980, London)That Australian singer was born in Scotland. He moved to Australia in 1952. He sang with hard-rock group AC/DC. He died of intoxication.
SID VICIOUS
(*10th May 1957- +2nd February 1979)
He was an English punk-rock bass guitarist. He grew up only with his mother. They lived in Ibiza, where his mother reputedly sold drugs. He began o sale LSD at the age of 14 years. He consummated drugs with the mother. He started to play with Flowers of Romance. He was famous for his bullying personality, not for his playing (but he had gift for writing music). His punk personality was good for punk-rock group Sex Pistols. The story goes that he played with a switched-off amplifier.
He met Nancy Spuqwnen, which was subjected to heroin, in 1977. So he started to use heroin too. One day he awoke from drugs daze and he found dead Nancy on floor of the bathroom in their hotel. She died of a result of a stab wound to the abdomen. He was charged that he killed her, because he was impaired that night. ¨
His new girlfriend organized a party in honor of his return from a prison in February 1979. Sid had undergone a detoxification in the prison too. But his mother gave him a heroin at the party. He was dead next morning, because he used an overdose. Maybe it was a suicide, because he was still very depressed, because of Nancy´ s dead. And maybe it was murder, because his mother used the heroin too and she knew that it was the overdose. Nobody knows.
KURT COBAIN
(*20th February 1967- +5th April 1994)
He was born in small city called Hoquiam. When he was at the age of seven, his parents got divorced. He was very affected by it. And he never put up with it. He slept in his friends´ s houses. He started to play with a group Fecal Matters and then with Nirvana. But he did n´ t bear the brunt of popularity and manager´ s press and he started to use heroin. He had a chronic pain of his stomach and heroin helped him to decline the pain.
He married Courtney Love, who was drug addict too. But Courtney stopped to use the drugs, when she found out, that she was expecting a baby. Kurt got away from a detoxification and he overdosed and shot himself in his own house on 5th April 1994. His last album „Unplugged in New York“ was got out after his death.
LAYNE STALEY
(*22nd August 1967- +5th April 2002)He was a singer and guitarist of a group Alice in Chains. He played the drums, when he was young, but he wanted to sing too. That is why he started to play with Alice in Chains. He was good designer too. He was found dead in his flat on 19th April 2002. He was overdosed by cocaine and heroin. All this artists died at the young age, but their music stays here. And this music can predicate of their life. I believe that just their songs will live among the people for a long time, for they can tell the story about a glory and hell of depressions. This story is one big warning for us, warning about drugs and suicides.
Vilma Knetlová Zdroje: www.osobnosti.cz, http://cs.wikipedia.org, www.nirvana-web.estranky.cz, http://bom-m.blog.cz/rubriky/Jimi-hendrix, elly.blog.cz/rubriky/sid-vicious, http://oficialnistranky.cz/janis-joplin, www.superstar.web2001.cz/jim-morrison
P a t t i S m i t h
Today, I have decided to write something about American singer, musician, writer, text writer and poet, which pertains between general protagonists of American punk and new wave. And what about you? Do you know Patti Smith? Patti was born on 30th December 1946 in Chicago. First, she was interested in poetry, journalism and writing dramas. Her first poets are effected by French poetry at the end of 19th century, above all so-called cursed poets (Tristan Corbiere, Stéphane Mallarné, Charles Cros, Marceline Desbordes-Valmor, Auguste Villiers de l´Isle Adam, Walt Whitman…) and their followers ( for example Arthur Rimbaud). She started to be interested in music in 1971, when she cooperated with Blue Oyster Cult. And she started with singing just before a rise of Patti Smith group in 1974 with Lenny Kaye (guitar), Richard Sohl (piano), Jay Dee Daugherty (drums) and Ivan Král (guitar, bass guitar). They have recorded albums Horses, Radio Ethiopia, Easter, Wave during years 1975-1979. First of them was still cast back to Andy Warhol´s products in sixties and a reaction to creation Velvet Underground. John Cale produced this album. Next three albums have typical original signs yet and they take in urgency of punk and specific gentleness and poetry. This mixture is general boon to music from this great singer. A few people sometimes say: Patti was first from prophets of punk, but quite in rare design. She gets a long ret of music after her group decomposition. We can hear her as late as in 1988 with album Dream of Life. This album has symptoms of pop, but it still has high impressiveness and imaginativeness in itself. She produced few albums later, but they didn’t have such a high quality as the previous ones. She writes poetry again at this time...You can listen to: Horses(1975), Radio Ethiopia(1976), Easter(1978), Wave(1979), Dream of Life(1988), Gone Again(1996), Peace and noise(1996), Gung Ho(2000), Trampkin´(2004). Or you can read: A useless death(1972), Seventh Heaven(1972), Ha!Ha!Houdiny(1977), Babel(1978), Flowers(1990), Woolgathering(1992), Early Work 1970-1979(1995), Complete lyrics, reflections and notes for the future (1998), Wild leaves (1999), Strange massagers - The work of Patti Smith (2003), Auguries of innocence-Poems (2005)
Vilma Knetlová
B e a t l e s
The Beatles is one of most famous pop-rock music group in history. They were typical representatives of artistic events above all music of 1960s. I will try to tell you something from their history. It started in 1956, when John Lennon met Paul McCartney at wandering in Woolton, they played in group Quarrymen and they started with writing of songs (they did one hundred songs during the first year). Both played guitar at that time. McCartney fetched along guitarist George Harrison in 1958. Drummer Colin Hanton left group because of problems with alcohol in the same year. They changed name to Johny and the Moondogs in autumn 1958 and they did it again in 1959, their new name was The Silver Beetles. Because they did not have any drummer Pete Best came to the group and with him John ´s friend designer and bass guitarist Stuart Sutcliffe. They changed name to the Beatles and got contract in Hamburg in 1960. Stuart Sutcliffe left them (he died of brain tumour two years later), so McCartney had to start to play bass guitar. The Beatles came back to Liverpool and played in local Cavern club first time.They left for Hamburg again in spring 1961. They met an assistant of company Polydor and they recorded disc My Bonnie like singer Tony Sheridan’s accompaniment. And Brian Epstein was their new manager and he arranged a few tours.
They went to Hamburg last time in spring 1962.When they came back in September Ringo Starr became to be new drummer. They recorded SP singles Love Me Do/ PS. I love you and Please Please Me/From Me To You in company EMI and they were on the top of British hit parade. After recording of new album Please Please Me (1963) they started to play all over the world. They had over two hundred of big concerts in1963-1964. They absolved tour in USA and concerted in The Ed Sullivan Show and filmed A hard day ´s night on 1964.
They were honoured Medal of British Empire and filmed Help! in 1965. 55 000 of onlookers came to their concert in Shea Stadium. The Beatles started to incline from pleasing but vacant texts to experiment with non-traditional sounds for example with sitar (it is Indic cimbalom) in Norwegian Wood, with playing with string quartet (Yesterday) or with all orchestra. John Lennon said in one interview in 1966:”Now we are more famous then Jesus Christ.” It invoked much of resistance and many radios stopped playing their songs. The Beatles stopped playing the same year. Brian Epstein died after overdosing with barbiturates in 1967 and Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper ´s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which is stigmatized with several studio experiments. They filmed Magical Mystery in 1967 and album with the same name, which is stigmatized with hallucinogen experiences. They produced album The Beatles in 1968 (it is called White album).And filmed Yellow Submarine. The year 1969 was critical for group. John Lennon went to sufferings with his wife Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney did not want it. John Lennon recorded Album “Unfinished music No.1: Two virgins” with her, based group Plastic Ono Band and protested against war in Vietnam. They played last concert on the top of recording studio and formed last film and LP Let it Be. Paul McCartney noticed his leaving of group in 1970 and others members followed him and every formed his own group. Demo singles of Lennon ´s songs were found in 1994 and others recorded accompaniment and rose last songs: Real love and Free as bird, which were produced on albums Anthology 1(1995) and Anthology 2(1996).
So members of Beatles were:
John Lennon-singing, guitar, mouth-harp, piano
Paul McCartney-singing, bass guitar, piano and sometimes drum
George Harisson- singing, lead guitar, piano
Ringo Starr-singing, drums
general LP-Please Please Me, With the Beatles, A Hard Day ´s Night, Beatles For Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper ´s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatle, Yellow submarine, Abbey Road, Let It Be
compilations: A Collection Of Beatles' Oldies, Let It Be Box-Set, 1962 – 1966, 1967 – 1970, Rock 'N' Roll Music, Live! At The Star-Club In Hamburg, Germany 1962 , The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl, Love Songs, The Beatles Collection, Hey Jude, The Beatles' Ballads, Rock 'N' Roll Music - nové vydání, The Beatles' Box, Beatles' Oldies, Reel Music, The Complete Silver Beatles, 20 Greatest Hits, Sessions, The Early Tapes Of The Beatles, Past Masters Volume 1, Past Masters Volume 2, Live At The BBC, Anthology 1, Anthology 2, Anthology 3, Yellow Submarine Songtrack, Let It Be ... Naked
films: A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Yellow Submarine, Magical Mystery Tour, Let It Be
I think that this music of our parents is still topical for them and for us too. So it is why I wrote about this legendary group.
Vilma Knetlová
Each Czech is said to be a musician…is it still true?
At Czech musical scene there are several singers who have been on the top for many years. They are older and older and haven’t got any new hits. Famous Czech as Karel Gott, Helena Vondrackova, Waldemar Matuska, Lucie Bila…they have been awarded prizes for 15, 20 and 30 years. They are still paid very well for their concerts and so they want to be on the top of the scene as long as possible. Older generation loves them because they sing music from their youth and so they send every year votes to nomination for their,, Devine Carl”(who is 65 now) at the best singer from CR. Yeah, my grandma loves him and she applauds him every year but my mother doesn’t like listening to his songs. And what about me and my friends?? We prefer youth and new hits. But nobody new who would be better and would like to support Czech music has come yet. Ha, ha….CR organizes competitions like Superstar and wants to find a constant artist who will be able to represent our republic. But our Superstars are not so constant. Their glory endures one year and then they loose into the stars in the sky. I think that CR needs a few pillars against them it could lean after 5 or 10 years. It is queer to speak all the time about the old or even dead pillars?. I know that it is not very nice to speak about them in this way because they also had a top period and now they only live from it. But our musical scene will represent largely hits of our veterans and we won’t note any progress! I think that necessary is youth, new style, courage for new ideas and inventions. Yes, I don’t say that here aren’t such people. But they usually play in a group. When they are really good, they go abroad and forget about CR. If CR deserves somebody who is really talented and wants to change it…it is a question! If our new generation wants something like that! Some of them admire American pop, rock or metal stars or rappers and when they really make their own group they sing in English…..so what a benefit for CR…? Yes it is generation who listens to music as a background for doing anything else and people who want to be real musicians are disappearing… We can find many musicals on our musical scene. As our film producer Philip Renc said:,, For each habitant of CR we have one musical! We have nearly more musicals than habitants of our country?” All musicals are not so good and unrepeatable…I think that it goes together. And when there is something like musical “Cats” by Lloyd Webber people don’t understand it and don’t appreciate it and won’t come to the performance and it goes bankrupt!!Diana Hericová
P u n k
Punk is a kind of music but also a life-style. This mark was used for music of poor quality, too. Punk as a stream has risen gradually, but as a date of birth is considered to be year 1976. This style was not grasped only as a music matter, but as a life style too. Punks opposed society and advertised different life style, when they criticized hypocrisy, costliness and thirst for money. This life style lead to sort of passivity over time and drugs expanded with this stream. Motto of punk is No future! Many punks say that base of punk is provocation.Punk has come back at beginning of rock musically, it means use of simple melody with three chords, in extreme event only two chords and smart satiric texts. Punk music stands on texts first, whose purpose is to highlight contemporary problems. Arrival of such groups as Sex pistols, The Clash and Ramones is considered to be the beginning of punk stream. But some groups had played this style about ten years earlier in fact, for example Stooges or Velvet Underground. Punk was ranked among the forbidden styles in former Eastern Europe, however many groups existed there too. This music and life style started to exert next to fall of communism. Special chaotic dance – pogo - is linked to punk, which rose from classical jumping on the place. Pogo has not strict rules. Vehement swinging of head, flapping hands, jumping in the rhythm of drums (or out of rhythm too) and mad interaction with other dancers. Right risen fisted hand is typical too.
General point of dressing was shocking above all. That is why many music groups used hooked crosses at the beginning. Later when Punk went in position of antagonists of Nazism, many members of stream excused these manners by the purpose to shock people. Other style of dressing has risen lately. Its confessors were dressed in dirty torn jeans and T-shirt with symbol of some punk group, very common accessory are leather jacket, grave boots and safety-pins. They have special hairdo too, for example strip or dishevelled hair. Subcultures and music styles inspire punk to unfurl in the nineties of 20th century. So relation between music and modish aspect of subculture is slacker now- other said: every behave without restraint and listening to some punk styles is not join with this image in every example.
Punks are specific with parts of their clothes. Each part has importance or deep ideological meaning for punks. Items of their clothes are not unimportant and they always express something.
Special hairdo - strips of hair - has a few meanings: to shock people though its first purpose was to diversify from skinheads, who have totally close-shaven heads. Punk hairdo is comparison to life of American Indians and their free-minded life before the arrival of modern civilization.
Choker – choker garnished with steal apices. It symbolises slavery society and all governments and systems where people have no will to take decisions on their own.
Torn and T-shirt – they have a provoking idea, that style of dressing is not general. It wants to force people to think about what is more important.
Many people look like punks today, but punk is only part of fashion for them not a life style.
Part of opinions, wear and style went out from members of a subculture existing in Great Britain at the end of seventies and the beginning of eighties – skinheads. Punks kept heavy shoes and antipathy with modernizing society, thirst for money and immoral mental funds from this subculture. But they disagreed with one ideological idea - to prefer only some races. Punks do not put any emphasis on a kind of religion, nationality, place of birth or colour of skin. Because they did not want look like skinheads, they have strips of hair on the head. Many subcultures affected punk, for example rockers from UK.
Punk is not probably ideological stream. It is an artistic stream, so we can not discuss workability of its ideas. Some punks have diverse ideals with mostly anarchistic character - protection of nature, fights for privileges of animals or downtrodden groups and minorities. They fight against globalization and profit of multinational companies.
Some punk groups: The Adicts, Anti-Flag, Bad Religion, Black Flag, Buzzcocks, Casualties, The Clash, Cock Sparrer, Cockney Rejects, Conflict, Crass, The Damned, Dead Kennedys, Dirt, The Distillers, The Exploited, Millions of Dead Cops, New Winds, NOFX, Pennywise, Ramones, Rancid, Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Subhumans, The Exploited, The Stranglers, The Vibrators, Patti Smith, Ramones, Alternative TV, Beerzone, Swell Maps, U.K.Subs, U.S.Bombs, Total Chaos, Leniwiec, Toy Dolls, The Unseen, The Distillers, Propagandhi, Oxymoron.
And some punk groups from Czech Republic: Aqva Silentia (anarcho-punk), Do řady, E!E (punk-rock), HNF(this group is from Jihlava), Houba (punk-rock), Kritická Situace, N.V.Ú. (punk-rock), Plexis, SPS, Šanov 1, Telex, Totální nasazení, Tři sestry (post-punk-pub-pop-rock), Visací zámek, Znouzectnost (punk-folk)
Vilma Knetlová
Music groups from Jihlava
Many concerts took place in Jihlava and near villages.The groups, from whole Czech Republic and foreign countries, played here. I will try introduce you some of them. I will add their websites too. You can look at some of their photos and mp3.
HFD (it means heroes of everyday). This group has lots of members. When they want to play on stage in our club, they have problems, because there is only small place. They play funny music. They don’t have absolutely clean voice, but their texts and enthusiasm balance it.
http://hfd.wz.cz
Nikoliv (=not at all). This is classic Ska-rock group. The members are two guitarists, bass guitarist, drummer and singer, who play on trumpet too. They play music of high quality. But they don’t have many concerts.
www.nikoliv.wz.cz
Patník (=guard stone). They play crust music. They rehearse and have concerts in garage. Many young people have meetings on their concerts. Their concerts are not only about music, but about gathering of these people too.
www.patnik.wz.cz
RPO-Ruce po obrně (= hands after paralysis). They play hard core in classic structure - guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer and singer.
www.rpo.wz.cz
Průmyslová smrt (=industrial death). Probably the most reputable hc group in Jihlava. Members of this group take part in actions, which help to save our planet too.
www.shitrecords.wz.cz/prumyslovasmrt
Žufan (I don’t know how to translate it to English) This group is not from Jihlava, but from close village Luka nad Jihlavou.
www.zufan.webzdarma.cz
Soustruh (=lathe). They are from Luka too. They play combination of punk and ska.
www.soustruh.wz.cz
Mimorytmus (= outside from rhythm). Group from Polná. They played punk then ska and now they play reggae.
www.mimoritmus.wz.cz
Proletáři všech zemí (proletarian from all countries). They are from Polná too. They have very expressive solos on violin.
www.proletari.wz.cz
Well, you know some groups from Jihlava now. So if I write about some concerts in Jihlava, you will know who is who.