Wolfgang's Vault, Who's at fault?

If you’re a big fan of live music, I mean really raw and loud concert music from legendary bands and performers of the psychedelic era such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead, The Doors, The Eagles,Pink Floyd, America etc. to the metal and grunge years like Metallica, Van Halen, April Wine, Nirvana, Guns n' Roses and surprise even Madonna!--

Then all you need to do is go to Wolfgang’s Vault, register for free and you can listen to lots of rare live performances by these legends of the music world from the collections of the late Concert Promoter Bill Graham whose real name is Wolfgang Grajonca who was born in Germany but escaped the Nazis in the 1930's and migrated to America and made the Bronx his home in the Big Apple wherein he Anglicized his name to you bet, Bill Graham; then moved to the Bay Area in the West Coast and there at the Fillmore Auditorium (Fillmore West) and Winterland in San Francisco ( then later in Fillmore East in New York City) revolutionized the concert scene in the United States from the 1960s onwards and lived the American Dream.


His untimely death in a helicopter crash in 1991 cut short his legendary love of promoting concerts and left thousands of taped live performances from the more than 35,000 shows that his company Bill Graham Presents (BGP) produced which is now made available to us, music lover through the website. The site also added the archives of thousands of performances and interviews of the nationally-syndicated radio shows like the King Biscuit Music Hour and Silver Eagle Cross Country.

The site is a music enthusiast’s haven where you can appreciate the “live“ and raw music of the artists and performers; you can say it’s a real manna from heaven courtesy of the departed promoter and the website owner William Sagan who acquired the assets of Mr. Graham for a “cheap” $5 million three years ago and took a gamble in its potential and is now reaping the fruits of his venture.



Although some groups like Led Zeppelin, Santana and the surviving members of The Doors and Grateful Dead are not quite happy anout it and are now suing him not for the music though where the website claims they’re paying royalties to the artists through companies/organizations like BMI, ASCAP and SESAC but for something else; that the website is allegedly offering free music to illegally benefit from the sales of other stuffs like T- Shirts, vintage concert posters and tickets who obviously does not belong to them but to the late concert promoter.



Just read between the lines…

“Sagan simply doesn't have the legal rights to exploit and profit from the extraordinary success of these musicians," Jeff Reeves, who represents the artists, said in a statement.

If you ask me Mr. Sagan is nothing but an enterprising man like everyone else in this capitalist world of ours (Hello, Uncle Sam?) and got lucky but obviously the dirty hands of some unscrupulous lawyers of the plaintiffs (who I don't think they really need this kind of gimmickry and green envy for they are literally and figuratively rolling in bales and bales of green monies for the rest of their lives unlike you and me) can be seen in this law suit and they will run the show to the ground for their own gain by finding loopholes that they could exploit to have a share of the ever growing potpie.

I wonder if they will have the nerve to sue Mr. Sagan if his venture was a flop and his cool $5 million went down the drain?

So what do you think?


If you love Rock & Roll visit:

Wolfgang's Vault

[All pics nicked from Wolfgang's Vault]

A Rose by any other name...

“Do you know where the “xxxx” you are? “, hollered Axl Rose when he finally appeared on stage amid the backdrop of smoke and lights as the opening notes of the GNR’s classic “Welcome to the Jungle” teared into the Palace of Auburn Hills, Michigan for the start of the November 25, 2006 show by one of the rock world’s most enigmatic and controversial showman.



Of course the crowd of more than 7,500, including this writer, although sparse by GNR’s standards, knew better--

“We’re in the jungle, alright!"

And here we are, still around and hanging out even if it was way past 11:30 in the evening (although quite early by Mr. Rose’s standard) despite the processions of unworthy “acts” hours earlier by some local bands culminating into the opening act by former Skidrow front man Sebastian Bach’s wild performance--



--that only made the crowd crying for some real hardcore, vintage rock and roll and Axl did what he always does best as he wowed us with songs from the Guns ’N Roses’ Appetite for Destruction and Use your Illusion years when he and Slash and company were on top of the world as they ruled the Rock Kingdom in the late 80’s to the early 90s plus some new tracks from the much anticipated epic album, Chinese Democracy which may or may never see the light of day because of several factors that may or maybe attributed to Axl‘s eccentricity, fickle- mindedness or overflowing musical creativity.



For more than two hours, he single- handedly put the audience transfixed and under his spell as he dominated them with his superb and airtight renditions of 19 of the best old and new Guns N’ Roses songs- Night Train, Outa Get Me, Sweet Child of Mine, Mr. Brownstone, It’s so Easy, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Live and Let Die, You Could Be Mine, IRS, Better, The Blues, etc, etc.

He showed his piano- playing prowess with a beautiful rendition of November Rain and hushed them with his whistling and singing in the acoustic Patience.

His signature moves were still there; arms- outstretched, feet shuffling across the stage, dashing at full speed and stopping suddenly while hitting those ear- splitting notes without dropping a beat, it was vintage Axl at his best minus the notorious “crab dance” though.


Axl Rose was once and still is a monster performer, from his powerful vocals to his hardnosed presence on the stage to his wardrobe peculiarities (he had red leather boots at one time) and off- stage antics down to his notoriously harsh and trashy vocabulary, and he is still arguably rock kingdom’s most exciting showman and performer

He was atop the two speakers in front of the stage when he ended the show with “Night Train” and said his “Thank you, goodnight” to the game and sweaty audience and went to the exits but not for long for he was back again for an encore with some songs from the much-awaited but much-delayed “Chinese Democracy” album, like the title track, Chinese Democracy, followed by the future classic Madagascar, and then ended the show with a bang with Paradise City, punctuated with the flying and swirling confetti overhead!

A GNR concert would not be complete without some drunken fans heckling him and Axl giving them back with his trademark venomous “F”- word laced tongue as well as some drunks whose idea of fun is getting into a fight with another drunk, but the security is always on top of the situation and very quick to the draw as they dragged them out of the venue in a flash.

In spite of these minor glitches and interruptions, the show could only be described in Axl Rose’s own words--

“I think it's been a good night, don't you think?" Axl Rose said to the audience at the end as he and the new GNR bandmates bowed and were applauded by a wild and grateful audience for a well -deserved evening performance at the Palace from one of Rock World’s royalty.

It was a good night indeed.

But the question still remains in the minds of the GNR fanatics: when’s the much anticipated “Chinese Democracy” album gonna be released?



Only Axl Rose knows...


[Video Clips:FieldingFowler- 2006]

Back-to-Back: Mark Farner and Lou Gramm

Where else can you find a music treat at a very nominal fee and watch two dynamic performers do their thing on stage in this day and age of high gas prices and atrocious high- tech gadgets?

Once again the annual Meijer-sponsored Taylor Summerfest did not disappoint when they brought Mark Farner of the seminal American rock band, Grand Funk Railroad, and Lou Gramm, the erstwhile lead singer of the rock band Foreigner, to the 2006 edition.

Two veteran rockers with contrasting singing and performing style wowed the audience who braved the afternoon sun and captivated them enough to watch and listen to their kind of music as they shared their vintage and classic hits to us, people who braved the heat for some afternoon delight and then some into the night--

The songs still ring like they did when I first heard them eons ago, that same sound that I am so familiar with, just like the sound from the old vinyl records that I had in my collections when I was growing up in the Philippines.

My cache of old records back home, from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin to Deep Purple to UFO to Rainbow to Black Sabbath, just to name a few, where it used to dominate the Radiowealth turntable in my younger years, that was both a source of consternation and amusement by my Gran’ Ma on the kind of music her “favorite” Grandson was hooked into.

But my taste in music is not confined to one particular genre for I enjoy and appreciate any product of artistic expression, and it also depends on what kind of mood I am at in a particular moment.

Anyway, the songs are as timeless as ever as nostalgia and appreciation quietly swept into the well- diversified crowd of “leather- clad bikers,” “baby boomers,” “thirty- some things“, “curious teens” and “old hags” that brought them together for several hours of musical extravaganza; the old revelers reminiscin’ about the good old days when rock music was pure and not yet corrupted by crash commercialism that is the hallmarks of rock groups nowadays while the young ones were introduced into a world that is so alien to them, rock and roll at its best, the way they were played before, where the guitars and drums are raw and unadulterated.



Mark Farner is the prolific songwriter, vocalist and guitarist of the power trio that is the Grand Funk Railroad who in their heyday had amassed quite an amount of jewelry in the music business (12 platinum albums/ 15 gold albums) and became one of America’s biggest bands in the 1970s as exemplified by the fact that when they performed in the Big Apple in 1971, they broke the attendance record for a concert at New York City's Shea Stadium and eclipsed the record set by the Fab Four no less in 1966, a record that still stands to this very day.

Mark Farner is a rock and roll legend no doubt, flamboyant and energetic, he held the audience captive till the end of his set with his superb guitar playing and brought us back in time with classic renditions of “We’re an American Band,” "Heartbreaker," "Some Kind Of Wonderful," I'm Your Captain (Closer To Home)," "Foot-Stompin' Music," "the Loco-motion", "Bad Time", "Mean Mistreater", and other hits from his days with GFR and also his solo career.

He is a class act when it comes to performing live.

Lou Gramm, on the other hand, who, together with Mick Jones, catapulted the rock group Foreigner to the top of the charts with his trademark powerful vocals but with a soft touch on the side.

Who can forget the rock ballad "Waiting For A Girl Like You", which spent ten weeks at 1981 at No. 2 in the American Singles Charts, and the vocally challenging "I Want to Know What Love Is", which was a worldwide number one hit in 1984 that cemented their stature as one of the biggest rock groups of the late 70’s to early 80’s?

But just like any musical group, Foreigner succumbed to that age- old curse of successful music groups when fame gobbled up their musical sense and the inevitable happened---

When Mr. Gramm and Mr. Jones clashed over musical ideas, the band’s direction and petty matters, they quietly disbanded and although they would reunite every now and then for a gig or two, the group and their music as well as their relationship with each other would never be the same again. Lou Gramm for his part, continued to do solo projects and tour with his band in the summer.

Lou Gramm who was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1997 and subsequently went under the knife to remove it; complications of surgery affected his voice and weakened his stamina, which was quite evident in the concert. He struggled with the high notes and at times seemed to stammer on the lyrics, but the audience did not mind these small asterisks in his performance for his drive and spirit were in full throttle.

He sang with so much power and gusto that the people showed their appreciation by singing along with him all the way-- from the opening song, “Double Vision” to “Dirty” to “Long, Long Way Home” to “Cold as Ice.”

The classic “Waiting for a Girl like You” made the audience quiet for awhile and just listened to his soothing voice float in the evening breeze.

Then he brought them back to their feet with a succession of classic songs like “Ready or Not,” “Rev on the Red Line,” “Head Games,” “Midnight Blue,” “Dirty White Boy” and “Jukebox Hero.”

“Hot Blooded” was the last song in his repertoire and a fitting one to end the hot and balmy summer night where music fans were treated to an extraordinary evening of classic rock and roll from two extraordinary performers.





*07/2006

The Best of Times

July 9, 2005 at the Heritage Park in Taylor, Michigan, USA, a crowd of more than 10, 000 people watched, screamed, sang and listened to the good old rock music of the still alive and rockin’ 70’s Super group named after the river in Hades, the Greek Underworld inhabited by the souls of the dead - STYX, as they rocked the 2005 Meijer Taylor Michigan Summer Fest!

The first cassette tape that I bought was the band’s Caught in the Act Live album back when I was in first year high school in 1983. So, when I saw the poster that STYX will be performing at the annual Meijer- sponsored Summer Fest literally for a song, I decided to grab the chance to watch them in person and did not regret it. The songs and sound remain the same albeit the singers and players were older and grayer.

STYX minus original front man Dennis de Young started the show with their traditional opening song, “Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)” by Lead Vocalist Tommy Shaw to the delight of the screaming audience. His voice hasn’t change much since he first burst into the scene eons ago for the band.

When the STYX Godfather James “JY” Young took the microphone and sang the opening lines of Snowblind--

“Mirror, mirror…“ the roars and screams went to a crescendo!

And with its unmistakable guitar riffs, he showed us why he is one of the best rock guitarists of all time.

Tommy Shaw then shared the story behind the haunting rock ballad “Crystal Ball“, the song that he composed in a bowling alley in Chicago while waiting for the call from STYX after he auditioned for them that would become the title of the first album on which he was featured as a new member of the group.

The new lead vocalist, Lawrence Gowan, although he can never equal the trademark voice of Kilroy, the erstwhile STYX Vocalist, he definitely can stand on his own merit and boy he can hit those notes not to mention the fact that he is a better piano player than his predecessor. He can play the piano with his hands behind his back putting to good use his degree in Classical Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Toronto.

Todd Sucherman can bang the drums better than any other and he is certainly one of the best drummers around that can do justice to the playing of the band’s original drummer, the terribly missed and departed John Panozzo, while journeyman Ricky Philips formerly of Bad English (When I See You Smile fame) is a great addition to the band with his energetic Bass guitar playing prowess and he surely found a home with STYX even though original bassist and the band’s co -founder, Chuck Panozzo, who was stricken with HIV and Prostate Cancer would sometimes join them every now and then in some of their gigs and concert tours.

The band sang many of their rock classics made famous in their Paradise Theater years like Rockin’ the Paradise, Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man), Suite Madam Blue, Too Much Time on my Hands, Come Sail Away, Captain America and of course, Miss America!

They also performed an 18- song medley of their blasts from the past and several cuts from their latest album, Big Bang Theory, their cover versions of several classic rock songs like the Beatles‘ I am the Walrus, Jimi Hendrix’s Manic Depression, and Steve Marriot’s I Don’t Need No Doctor, just to name a few.

The band played with so much energy and gusto! The concert lasted more than two and a half hours of pure rock and roll and the fans could never ask for more. We all went home with good memories of STYX and their music.



*Posted in Lagalag- C2005