Showing posts with label rock music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rock music. Show all posts

Saturday, January 12, 2019

Red River Is Back!

We've been away for a while due to financial considerations, but now Red River once again has its own website. And I managed to snatch up our old domain. I am rather averse to change, after all.

You can find Red River here:

https://www.redrivermusic.biz/

We soon will begin selling our new digital album online. Stay tuned!

Am I excited? I am!

Friday, October 9, 2015

Book Review: "Reckless: My Life As A Pretender"


In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't quite gotten to the end of Chrissie Hynde's book. I'll admit, I'm struggling. It started off great -- Chrissie is from the same generation as me, so I could relate to her early experiences, up to a point.

You know me -- I'm a country gal. The only reason I'm shaking hands with The Pretenders at all is because my husband kept goading me into listening to them. What sealed the deal was his insistence that a certain song of theirs defined our relationship:


That was my introduction to The Pretenders.

As a known dolt, I realized I'd heard The Pretenders before, but my brain didn't register who exactly they were or why I would, in my teeny country brain, care. But then we went to see them in concert. It was a bit surrealistic -- I was more a Dwight Yoakam torn-jeans screaming hillbilly, but I was open to new experiences. I remember Chrissie coaxed comedian Sarah Bernhardt up on the stage for some unfathomable reason, and Sarah said something that flat-lined - an abnormal blip in my cerebrum, but I overlooked it because my husband was a fan of The Pretenders, so I was keen to go along. I figured HE got it and that I was sorely out of touch.

But I liked Chrissie because she was balls-out. She was a rocker - a FEMALE rocker - which is an other-worldly anomaly.  Chrissy fascinated me.

I heard (or reheard) songs like:


And:


But, alas, her autobiography is so timid that it deflated any notions I had about her. I mean, this gal is as insecure as me! And that's saying a lot -- of bad things. It's not that I can't relate. I blame myself for basically everything I've ever done or haven't done. But I wanted more -- more girly bombast. Chrissie is so self-effacing, she's opaque. The entire book is about the "others" in her life -- sort of how I would write my autobiography -- tucking myself inside a pocket and letting Dad or Phil Bedore (my former boss/nemesis) or George Strait speak for me.

 And the drugs....I'm no hypocrite; I have my own drugs, like, or DEFINITELY LIKE nicotine...and beer. Is sleep a drug? If so, add that to my ledger.

But it seems like Chrissie would pop or smoke anything, pulsing plasma be damned; just to get a high. I'm no prude, seriously. But I've always had a bent towards not dying -- call me crazy. The "not dying" thing kept me from doing sundry things that would have me writing this (on a cloud) from heaven or some form of hell.

Label me "not on board". If smoking or swallowing something is all that life is, in between functioning as a bad waitress, that really downgrades the impact that Chrissie has had as a punk, or a rebel, or as just a "rhythm guitar player" (like she chooses to identify herself).

I understand self-loathing. You know me -- I'm a failed everything. But Chrissie should have stood up and embraced who she was. That's what I wanted out of this book.

Instead I got a bunch of stories about other people, in which she was an observer.

Chrissie sold herself short.



















Friday, February 7, 2014

Fifty Years Ago Today


I was a farm kid riding Bus Number Seven to school every day. The Beatles didn't know about me, or care, but I sure knew about them. My repertoire of music up 'til then consisted of my older sisters' Elvis Presley records and Eddie Cochran's Summertime Blues. Those tunes were all well and good, but kind of outdated for the hip early nineteen sixties. Elvis and Eddie were my sisters' music, not mine. I'd only grabbed hold of them because what else was there, really? Connie Francis?

The Beatles, though, they were mine. My sisters didn't get it; my parents sure didn't. I stood on the sidewalk across from Valley Elementary, delaying my walk to Wednesday catechism, and had a heart-to-heart talk with Debbie Lealos about these four British guys who were making music like nothing either of us had ever heard before. And talking about the cute one - Paul.

Cuteness was very important to a fourth-grader. Cuteness held a cache that colored our ten-year-old critique of The Beatles' music.After all, John was married. Thus, our chances of marrying John were nil. Ringo was odd-looking; George was too skinny.

Yes, it was Paul who all the girls were determined to marry - determined to become Mrs. Paul McCartney. It could happen. Paul would see us for the cool girls we were. He'd sweep us off our feet. To hell with Jane Asher.I waited and watched for Paul on that three-block walk to Sacred Heart Cathedral, but he never once whizzed by in his Aston-Martin, or whatever the English cars were called.

I never gave up, though. I spent the entirety of my hard-earned allowance money at Poplar's Music Store buying Beatles singles. The 45's were orange and yellow and I bought every single one, and I even played the B sides.

I was obsessed. And The Beatles were mine.

If you don't know this about me by now, I am a music snob. I admit it. I am a snob.I don't know what half-baked acts anyone holds up from the nineteen nineties as being timeless. Mariah Carey? C'mon.

I watched a talk show the other day, where one guy argued that The Beatles were heaven-sent, and the other four imbeciles on the show started throwing out names like Aerosmith and the Oak Ridge Boys, for God's sake. Really? What universe do these people exist in? People can be so ignorant.

Trust me, if it wasn't for The Beatles, Steven Tyler would still be howling in a garage somewhere, and the Oak Ridge Boys would be garnering a dedicated following in Baptist churches all across the south.  And I like the Oak Ridge Boys.

For anyone who is too young to know, here it is: The Beatles changed music forever.

Here's their very first Ed Sullivan appearance (and I was there - well, in front of my TV, I mean):


I'm not going to enumerate all the great Beatles songs through the years, because I don't have time to search them all out on YouTube, but trust me on this. If you're planning to be shipwrecked on a desert island somewhere and you can only grab one artist's records on your way to the boat dock, grab The Beatles.

Steven Tyler and Joe Bonsall can just wave at you from the shore.