The fuse was lit in 1966. Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and Keith Moon came together to record a proto-metal classic. After the session an offhand quip from Keith Moon sticks with Jimmy Page.
Then we meet The G; the imposing Peter Grant. Led Zeppelin’s fearsome tough-guy manager was a key reason why Zep dominated the rock landscape in the early 70s.
We begin in the midwest college town of Kent, Ohio, in the late spring of 1970. We’ll meet three future rockers--students at Kent State University, barely out of their teens--who will be changed forever by what they witness. We’ll check in on Motown, where the fluffy pop “Sound of Young America” is still alive, but there's a big change coming, a movement towards a tougher, more topical sound.
Read MoreWelcome back to the second half of our big chapter telling the big story of a big year in Rock. If you haven’t done so already, we highly recommend you listen to Episode 18 before you delve into this one!
We tell the story of 1969 by telling the story of four concerts: The Beatles on the Roof, The Rolling Stones in Hyde Park was the first part. Part Two will take us to the peak, to the apotheosis of Woodstock...and to the abyss at Altamont. And we’ll go to some other places in between too.
Read MoreWe start in January, with The Beatles on The Roof, a 42-minute outdoor concert that definitely warmed up the neighborhood of Mayfair, London, England. Then we catch up with their friends and rivals, The Rolling Stones.
Read MoreChapter 17 of Rock N Roll Archaeology is bookended by a couple of Simon & Garfunkel albums: “Bookends” from the spring of 1968; and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” from January of 1970. Our story takes place mostly in New York City: a city big enough to spawn two very different, very talented--and very influential--artists: Paul Simon and Lou Reed.
We start our tale of Paradise Lost in Buena Vista Park, San Francisco, in the fall of 1967. Hippie, the Devoted Son of Mass Media, is dead, and the San Francisco Diggers are conducting the funeral.
From the funky streets of the Haight we head east a couple miles to the Fillmore West, and meet a complicated man, concert promoter Bill Graham.
Read MoreAn impressionistic look at the interplay of Rock N Roll and Culture in Los Angeles during the latter half of the 1960s. There are familiar elements: storytelling, critical discussion and commentary, and lots of Rock N Roll attitude. But this one is different from most of our previous RNRAP offerings.
Read MoreWe open in Manila on the second stop of the Far East leg of the Beatles’ 1966 tour, which starts out weird and ominous, and gets worse from there. By the time the tour sputters to a halt—late August in San Francisco—the boys are almighty sick of it.
Read MoreWe open at Waldo Point Marina in Sausalito, California, just north of San Francisco. Otis Redding takes a break from the road on Bill Graham’s houseboat, and comes up with a signature song.
Then we talk about Stax Records: the origins, some of the artists, and the source of the Memphis Magic, that tough, lean Southern Soul sound. Lots of great musical examples, because, yeah, we roll like that.
Read MoreJimi’s astonishing, supernatural talent was forged in poverty and neglect as he grew up in Seattle. We talk about that, and about the night Elvis came to town. After a short stint in the Army comes to a humiliating end, Jimi takes it on the road and spends the next four years paying his dues as a sideman.
Read MoreWe start by taking a clear-eyed look at the infamous seaside “Riots” in the resort town of Clacton, United Kingdom and several other towns in the summer of 1964. The British press were WAY over the top in their depiction of these events, but they did document the first schism, the first big division in Rock music and culture: the traditionalist Rockers versus the Modernists, or “Mods.”
Read MoreEpisode Ten opens up with Christian narrating at the site of the Bricklayer’s Arms Public House, in Soho, West London, where Brian Jones met with two younger men, school chums, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, in the fall of 1963.
The three of them share a passion for American music—especially the amped-up, tough-sounding Chicago Blues coming out of Chess Records.
Read MoreThis show will contain familiar elements — storytelling, commentary, and musicology — but it is also a bit of a departure. It takes place mostly in the mid-sixties, but we’re not following a timeline or building a story: it’s more of a mosaic, a think-piece.
We think the influence of psychedelic drugs — especially LSD — on rock music is critically important and very much overlooked. It’s a vital part of the overall story. We hope to make that case with this show.
Read MoreWe open on December 27th, 1961, at the Cavern Club on Mathews Street in Liverpool, just a mile inland from the confluence of the River Mersey and the Bay of Liverpool. Across the Irish Sea, over the Atlantic Ocean, a continent beckons.
Pete Best calls in sick, and the boys bring in Richard Starkey—Ringo Starr to the world—to sit in on drums, his first paid gig with the Beatles. It clicks musically; the band really swings with Ringo on drums.
Read MoreArrival: we begin the show on February 7th, 1964, in the first-class cabin aboard Pan American Airlines Flight 101 from London to New York City. It’s a raucous, party atmosphere, but John Lennon, for a moment anyway, feels alone in a crowd.
A door opens, pandemonium ensues, and a new era arrives.
Read MoreIn this episode we — finally !— get to meet some powerful and successful Rock n Roll women. It’s a great storyline we will grow and develop as we move through the years. To the best of our ability, we employ a feminist perspective for much of today’s discussion; we think that’s what serves the story best, and it just feels like the right thing to do.
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