The short version is that the band broke up and everyone left town and I got a gig in this corny show band with dancers and costume changes and a whack job head case leader (the guy with the trumpet) and thus, this photo.

Tall lean lanky and handsome with a perfect 70′s ‘stash I turned 21 on the road with this group – and leaned a lot about show business, entertainment, and the mafia who owned the show and most of the places we played.

We were in Salt Lake City for 2 weeks where you could only drink in “private clubs.” The citizens in this pious religious mecca were total skalliwags, at least in the 70′s, and partied harder, drank more, and fooled around like rabbits, especially with musicians from Vegas.

By the time we got to Dalls, where this poster announced the colossal cover charge of $2.50 for ALL THAT ACTION, I was so fed up with playing the Neill Diamond Medley and the fact that the leader was a horse shit singer who could only play about 4 notes on that trumpet, and that he fired me for looking at his wife, or his lazy eye or something, and me and my bass amp and Gibson EB3 bass and a suitcase loaded up on a Greyhound bus and rode 24 hours back to my mother’s house in Terre Haute Indiana where I worked at a tulip greenhouse job for a full 4 weeks.

Then, despite my promise to the owner to “stay” and not run off back to Las Vegas to be in some band, I quit and went West in a Karman Gia hatchback I bought for $500 to a gig in Los Angeles. It broke down somewhere in the desert on the way. Winslow Arizona, I think.

The Doors LA Woman – the title cut from the album that sold a kazillion was apparently recorded in a house in LA, with Jim Morrison sitting in the bathroom (good echo) doing the vocals as the band was pitched around the room just outside.

For years I thought that the first line was “Well I did a little down about an hour ago.” Downers being the nickname for the original mother of all downers the ROHR 714 Quaalude. When I lived in LA a friend turned me on to a doctor in Compton who saw like 75 patients right in a row and would prescribe 30 Quaaludes and 30 Desoxym an ass kicking methamphetamine, for the office visit fee. (No Dr. Obama – no health insurance accepted.)

You’d have to get there early enough to get in line to make the first 75, which snaked out the door and down the street. I did this little journey twice, both times making the cut. It was like something out of the Twilight Zone, since you’d be in line with 74 other hippies, mostly white, to see a black doctor in Compton. As we stood there cop cars pulled up both times and cops leaped out and started taking photographs of us with those big crime scene cameras – flashbulbs – the whole deal.

Of course, at least 75 of us had weed in our pocket, and we nearly had heart attacks being stoned and photographed by the police! But, we maintained our ranks, and the cops left. (God I’d give anything to have an 8X10 glossy black and white photograph of of me in that line! I wonder what I was wearing? The Jimi Hendrix striped pants? Tie Dye T Shirt?)

When you finally got up to see the doctor, they took you into the next open room and weighed you and took your blood pressure. Then the doctor came in smiling and shook your hand and sat down. He was totally mellow (wonder why) and in a sort of dreamy voice he would say “well why are you here today?” Now, all morning you’d been wondering how this would go, since pharmaceutical drugs were hard to find, and prescribing them like this was totally illegal, and the whole scenario seemed made up the first time you hear it. But, I was prepped by the best and the hippiest and said, “doc, I’m having trouble sleeping and I need to lose weight.”

Now, I’m 22 years old, lean as a #2 pencil, and do not need to lose an ounce, and realistically sleeplessness is a more complex problem, but he said, “okay, I’m going to prescribe you Quaalude for the sleep and Desoxyn for the weight loss.” And proceeded to write out the prescription on his RX pad.

The pads were “sponsored by” a pharmacy a few miles away, so my friend I’d come with and I just went to the nearest drugstore and handed the prescriptions to the pharmacist. He yelled at us to get the hell out of his store and threw the prescriptions back at us. I don’t know if the words hippie scum or quack were actually used that day – but let’s assume so. Suffice it to day, this guy was not in on the fun!

The author - resting.

That night – the women flocked to the house on the beach with the band who started the day with 60 quaaludes and a serious party broke out. Women love Quaaludes. It was like having the only pack of cigarettes in a federal prison – we were Gods.

What I learned from this experience the most was that I hated speed. We took the desoxyn one night and drove drove straight through from LA to Reno Nevada talking 200 miles per hour with the worst case of cotton mouth I’d ever known, and nearly giving myself TMJ from clenching my teeth while my friend talked. Burned out and hungover – I gave the rest away and never touched uppers the rest of my life. I’m decisive like that.

Sometimes I see people going really fast today – hyper and over-amped – and I wonder…

Oh, the actual lyric in the song is “Well I just got into town about an hour ago.” No downer. Must have been pretty mumbly there in the bathroom.

This song was at the top of the Billboard Charts in December of 1990. Billy Joel’s searing video history lesson of pop culture from the 1950′s until the present (at the time) is a feast for the ears and eyes.

Joel runs through the list of the top buzz words that shaped the news and popular culture beginning with a “Lucy and Ricky Ricardo” couple coming into the TV SET kitchen of their new home still in their wedding clothes.

In rapid fire images are shown and reflected in the kitchen by the couple and their new baby. As the time on the calendar goes by – the couple grows older – the baby grows up – and at the same speedy velocity of “We Didn’t Start The Fire” you see a Lone Ranger lunch box, a Davy Crockett coonskin cap (this was so totally my childhood – I had the lunch box, and I had that cap!) and all the trappings and utensils of the day – changing to newer ones as they enter the 1960s.

Juxtaposed over against the seemingly happy family we have the awful, horrible images of war, violence, civil rights struggles, and awfulness that signify “the fire” that we didn’t start – but we try to fight.

The family goes through their kid smoking pot, their daughter burning her bra, the 70′s, and all the while Billy Joel, in sunglasses is the silent singing observer.

Each time the song goes to the chorus, the black and white photograph of some epic event – like the picture of Lee Harvey Oswald being shot in the underground transfer in Dallas by Jack Ruby, is on fire and burns higher until Joel throws the table down and declares “I can’t take it anymore!”

The family, meanwhile has the argyle sweatered dad and hair up fashionably mom drinking heavily while their kids, and grandkids go off further into counter culture – until Jr. reaches into the refrigerator just as the song says “though we didn’t light it — when we are gone – - it will still go on and on and pulls out a small fire.

The energy of this song, Billy Joel’s impressive lyrics (instead of saying downs syndrome he uses “Children of Thaladimide” and groups and angles the news events in such a way as to make a coherent narrative about life in the 2nd half of the 20th century.

And there it is.

Convenience, culture, freedom and the American way – in the midst of unthinkable violence and injustice around us – not much different than the “fire” that burned throughout history right up through World War II Nazi holocaust.

Tags: 80s music videos, billy joel, we didn’t start the fire,

Tags: 80s music videos, music video, rock and roll

I really never expected to see Flock of Seagulls live – but there they were – at a special I Love the 80s concert in Denver Colorado last summer.

Flock of Seagulls came out rockin’ and of course the most anticipated part of the program was seeing if the lead singer had that crazy wild bird mohawk.

He did not.

He was wearing a stocking cap and looked like he had not shaved but darn if it wasn’t him!

The guitar player appeared to be the same guy, too – although now the whole gang had gained enough weight for 2 bands.

Yeah, well so had I.

I was a guitar, bass player in the 80s and we played top 40s dance music – in fact we played this exact song.

That snappy snare hit on four is what the kids would snap their head to.

You know, swaaaaaay Snap!

Totally cool.

Good song and I know what he means – you meet some girls and darn they just freak you out – so you are tempted to run – I wish I had run a few more times than I did!

Rick Butts

Tags: music video, 80s music videos, rock and roll

Classic.

This poor girl was surely the back ally skank of her high school

Naturally she got a gig as the chick singer of the Davinyls – and when presented with this potential chartbuster – she took it all the way with the video.

Hey, though, it was the 80′s – I did a lot of stuff in the 80′s that I am embarrassed about. Glam and cheap sex were prevalent in music.

Now music in the 2007s is not nearly so randy, right?

HA!

I found this video along with a disco hip hop remix of it featuring the FHM Models – whomever they are – Pussycat Doll ripoffs.

Anywhoo – their stuff was much much much more tragic.

This song, in it’s pop rock glory – at least kept a fairly straight face about the metaphor and didn’t have 8 girls sliding up and down stripper poles to a very slow – lip synch of it.

Now that I think about it – I may put that one up here – all for rock and roll!

Tags: Rick Butts, marketing tips, , marketing ideas, marketing strategies

But Tom’s got his own style – it’s impossible to hear one of his songs and wonder "who is that?"

This is an excellent video and should set you free for a time!

My List is all about Rock and Blues. So – it’s my list!

Jimi Hendrix
Duane Allman
Jimmy Page
Billy Gibbons
Lindsay Buckingham
Carlos Santana
Roger Waters
Dickey Betts
Jeff Beck
Eric Clapton

Please add your favorites here in comments – and feel free to argue me out of these?

Rick Butts

Tags: Terri Nunn, Berlin, Riding on the Metro, The Metro, music video, You Tube