Rambling On.

Normally when I have to attend a wedding I grab one of my suits send it to the cleaners, if required, and then merely wait till event day shave, shower, and get dressed. But this time I am in the wedding party making it a little different. But in this particular case it is completely different.

This time my wife and I were both on the search for new outfits, very specific ones at that. My buddy Steve and his fiancé Chrissie decided to have a theme to their wedding reception. What type of theme you ask? Well if you would wait and stop being so impatient I could tell you; 1970’s.

Ok I will admit a month ago when I found this out I was a little concerned. Not of the idea as I thought that it was a fun idea for a different swing on a wedding reception and thought it was great. I was concerned about what I was going to wear. Can’t go to the closet and throw on a suit nope this would take some planning to be done properly.

So how do people dress in the 70’s? After a couple weeks of racking my brain -ok I probably thought about it for an hour or so the first week. But then it hit me and as the clouds parted it was as if I was Coming In Through The Out Door; look to the music! Of course, that was it, most of my all time favorite bands are from the 70’s. Bands like CCR, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Clapton, Dylan, Young, Floyd, Bowie, Black Sabbath, The Who, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, AC/DC and the list goes on but NO disco of course. Of course I saved the best band of all time for last Led Zeppelin.

It wasn’t long before I quickly figured out what sort of attire I should go after in light of my epiphany. But I will not discuss that any further as I will post some photos from the event on Sunday or Monday depending on how I am feeling.

But looking deeper into the 70’s truly reminded me of what I love about music and the era itself. There are not many acts out there today that produce anything worth listening to but if you listen closely and sort through the crap there are some musicians left.

True fans of music might know about a strange man named Jack White. He has been consistently re-introducing what makes rock interesting, entertaining and artistic. He is a natural story teller and his lyrics and sound are unique while revealing his influences from the old days of rock.

One in particular that I didn’t listen to very much other then his hit song a few years ago was Josh Todd and his band Buckcherry. But now listening more intensely it seems that the bands main goal is to produce a raw, nasty, and hardcore rocker image but more importantly they are also bringing that raw sound and lyrics back. Note: Their ballots like Sorry are annoying but check out Broken and of coure Crazy Bitch and Lit Up.

But in the depressing days consisting of music idol contests signing music contracts who it doesn’t look good and it is that much harder for people like White to inspire other artists to truly search for that interesting ‘true rock’ sound. I guess we will have to wait and see.

What happened to rock? I can’t really answer that except to say that I truly believe times simply changed. People changed and wanted something new to ‘groove’ to. Greedheads were out to suck the life and fun out of rock and roll. Contracts and money was becoming the main goal and selling out was a hot commodity.

Just as the 60’s beloved they were winning, so too did the rock of the 70’s. To me it seems as simple as that and as it happened hardcore rockers faded away as the main stream closed in. But there would be underground movements to come thank god i.e. Punk.

But what do I know? It does make me wonder if the stories of Robert Johnson meeting the devil at the crossroads and selling his soul to play guitar were true. Jimmy Page was said to have sold his soul as well in favour for his talent. Maybe that’s what we need today a few more brave or vain people to sell their souls to be the best.

Would you sell your soul to be the best? Seems Tempting...