watch it here Something In The Water
watch it here Something In The Water
i.ain't.dead.irock
Thanks! I really dug that!!
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
Seriously? Crickets?
This is awesome and should be watched and discussed. I'll get back when I finish it as it's like the other video, I fell asleep watching this the first time.
48 minute mark, are they playing Dream Theater in the background? Sounds like SDOIT to me but they are talking about Head East. Sounds cool but seems odd.
"And, oh yeah, he can drive the truck".
Fascinating.The music biz and technology is what this almost really about, but centers on St. Louis.
Can I say fascinating again? Quadrophonic. Even spell check doesn't recognize the word. I have a few Deep Purple tunes in Q and they are worthless, as far as I know. The part with The Who is concert application, I get that, it's different, but what the hell were DP thinking with Q mixes when no one has a Q system?
Bob Heil is in the RnR hall of shame and it took Deep Purple this long? Funny how that works and I'm not taking shots at him, what he did seems to be amazing.
Mama's Pride, never heard of them until now. Sad story.
Ozark Mountain Daredevils. Heard the name, never ever would have thought Jacky Blue was theirs.
Head East, I saw them in the late '90's. Yay me. They were cool but the only reason I was there was the ticket was free and they did Since You Been Gone so I had to check that out.
Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000
Bookmarked to watch it later..
my bad. I just threw it out there w/o any info. more than anything, this documentary centers on the history of the rock music scene in St. Louis, Missouri from the late 60's through the 70's. it's told entirely through interviews, rare archival footage and photos. it was indeed a unique time for youngsters like me to discover KSHE 95 for the first time. the documentary goes into some detail on the station's identity and influence in the evolution of AOR programming on FM. they broke all the rules and then some. there were no other stations around at the time who would dare to play entire albums from bands like Gypsy and Angel, then almost instantly become a St. Louis classic and second son. from there it weaves it's way from concert promoters Contemporary Productions to the Mississippi River Festival with lots of great stories in between. the bands which are most discussed were Mama's Pride, Head East, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, and Pavlov's Dog. the bit with Bob Heil and his relationship with Pete Townshend was very fascinating. I wish they had told the story of Kiss and the 1974 KSHE Kite Fly. I'll paste it below.Originally Posted by TheLoony
To St. Louis’ law enforcement and the mayor’s office, odd developments in the good part of town must have seemed ominous. A peaceful rebellion, armed with kites and marijuana, had formed in Forest Park. Traffic was tied up for hours, and the next day the story landed in the newspaper. To those in St. Louis who hadn’t heard of KSHE, this was their introduction, along with the rest of the United States. The thousands who gathered in Forest Park on March 29, 1974 celebrated the coming of spring. A cool sunny day punctuated by brisk winds gave the fans the perfect day to fly a kite. As the fans slowly filled up the park, dozens of kites sailed gently into the breeze. Massive contraptions took to the air before the large crowd made their launch impossible. At least one brave soul teamed up with his creation to take to the skies. As thousands poured in, there was less room for the giants and their smaller paper and wood versions. To get a better view, dozens of fans climbed upon backstops of the baseball diamonds and also bent the wooden soccer goal posts like a twigs under their weight. They weren’t there to just see the kites sail in the skies. They were there to see a concert. A band named KISS just started their first U.S. tour a week before. Standing on stage, the band witnessed something historic. On that day they performed before their largest audience as a headliner in the United States, as KISS Alive author Kurt Gooch noted in 2007. Just one week on tour and KSHE was there to help. KSHE became one of the first radio stations in the U.S. to play a KISS single.
The 1974 Kite Fly was a turning point for the free festivals. Shelley Grafman, who was the force behind this gathering, was keenly aware of the potential for problems. It had been less than three years since fans busted up Kiel Auditorium at a Ten Years After concert. Shelley certainly hadn’t forgotten that event as KSHE had sponsored it. The stakes were a bit higher in 1974. Forest Park was the crown jewel of all the parks in St. Louis. Thousands would pour into the park. Would he risk all this? You bet.
The first Kite Fly was four years earlier in Forest Park. Sponsored by St. Louis Stereo, it was one of Shelley Grafman’s early promotions. Shelley’s desire was to give the station some exposure to the kids that hadn’t signed on to KSHE. Through 1973, local bands played, and a contest gave the participants an opportunity to create the largest, smallest, most beautiful or ugliest kite. The staff at the radio station even sold kites printed with the station’s call letters and a peace sign.
But in 1974 complications started before showtime. Mark Klose recalls the hours leading up to it: “I remember right after their first album, we were playing some of that. I went out to the airport to pick them up. We had an old Ford Econoline van with no seats in it. It was like a cargo van. They came strolling out [of the airplane], and they had all their leather outfits on, and they are wearing their platform shoes and no makeup. They traveled so each one of them had literally a garment bag. I walked them through the airport and I got some pretty bizarre stares. And I think they stayed at the Howard Johnson’s at 44 and Hampton.
“I was kind of the jack-of-all-trades,” Mark said. “So they got the stage set up and Shelley Grafman told me to get power. So I went to a rental place and got four Honda generators, those little lawn mower types. And they are sitting there puttin’ away.
“Kiss was probably going to go on at three or four o’clock, (but) they were still at the hotel, and the road manager came up. He was a big black guy. He had leather on and all that, and he said. ‘I need to talk to the guy in charge.’
I said, ‘I guess that’s me.’
He says, ‘Yeah, we need to talk about the specs we have for the sound. We’re gonna need 85,000 watts.’
I said ‘uh huh.’
And he goes ‘Where’s your power source?’
And I pointed over to these generators, all four of these Mickey Mouse Honda generators. I point; meanwhile one of them just craps out. So now we’re down to three. And this guy just goes out of his mind.
“‘What the FUCK! We’re not PLAYING! This is BULLSHIT! We’re a BAND!’ And blah, blah, blah. He’s just going nuts and jumping up and down. And I said, ‘I got nothin’ in advance, nothing from the record label. Nobody said anything. I had no idea what you guys needed.’
He said, ‘We’re not playing. If you don’t fix this, we’re not playing.’
And I said, ‘All right.’
He said ‘Go talk to your boss.’
So I went over to Shelley Grafman and I said, ‘He said they’re not going to play, there’s a problem with the power.’
Shelley said ‘We’ve got generators.’
‘They’re looking for, I don’t know, about 83,000 more watts than we currently have.’
“At this point, I think for the Kiss show, we did about 40,000 people, and there were probably 20,000 already in the park. And Kiss, probably the biggest audience they had ever played to was 1,000 people...maybe. So Shelley’s very cool and he says, ‘Tell them to go home.’
I said, ‘What?’
He said ‘Tell them if they don’t want to play, tell them to go home.’
I said ‘Okay Dokay.’
So I walked back [to the road manager] and he said ‘What did your boss say?’
I go ‘If you don’t like it, go home.’
‘WHAT!’
‘Hey, don’t kill the messenger. I’m just telling you what he said. If you don’t like it, sorry, but go home.’
“So he walks around in circles a little bit, and he comes over and says ‘Well all right.’ Meanwhile in between that transition time, another generator crapped out. So now we’re down to two generators, and I don’t even think he even realized that.
“Even in those days Peter Criss’ drum kit was on pneumatics and it would go up in the air. And he had special sticks with fireworks shooting out of them, and all this junk. So now we’re down to two generators, and he goes, ‘All right, we’ll play.’
“So between the time he goes to get the band and came back another one died. So now we’re down to one very small Honda generator. I had an intern and I stood him there with a can of gas and I said ‘Whatever you do, don’t let this thing run out of gas, I mean ’cause were gonna have NOTHING!’
“So we did the most basic PA system. Forget the pneumatics. Forget the explosions. They came out and they’re all dressed up in their outfits and so that was our run in with Kiss.”
“Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley still talk about it,” says Katy Kruze. “A few years back they spoke of that Kite Fly. They remember standing inside the back of a truck, holding on as the truck bounced over the grass in Forest Park.” David Grafman also remembers the journey to the park in the van. “The van had been paneled on the inside. Over the wheel wells, there was a boxed out ledge you could sit on. There were no chairs or anything. The four members of the band all sat on the wheel wells. They were feeling pretty good about themselves. And somebody said, I forgot who, ‘Hey, who is in charge of getting the girls tonight?’ And then Paul Stanley said, ‘Yeah, right. Like tonight’s gonna be any different than any other night. You’ll be alone in your room.’ It was classic. I was 13 years old and these guys were just normal 26 year olds in all their make-up. And they were just feeding each other shit about getting girls.” The doors open and the band stepped out in front of the largest crowd in North America they would play before, for decades to follow.
i.ain't.dead.irock
Great story about Kiss there. I do wish the doc had said something more than a passing reference to Sammy Hagar.
I also wasn't calling you out for a thin OP, I was calling PE out. Come on, this is good stuff here. In a odd way I can see the reasoning behind why some were miffed at the Babymetal thread.
Huh, learn something new every day, eh?
Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000
oh, I know you weren't. for that matter, the video is on utube for those who might have streaming issues with the other one. I just didn't bother to check. Sammy is another St. Louis fave and he never fails to draw the crowds. it's always a big party and he loves it. here's a bit from an interview he did with the Post Dispatch in 2011. I was at that Superjam. Shooting Star, April Wine and Judas Priest were the other bands. Shooting Star is a Kansas City area band that got a lot of airplay from KSHE too.
i.ain't.dead.irock
Thanks for sharing this -- really enjoyed it. I went to college in St. Louis in the mid 80's and I thought KSHE was the coolest radio station ever! I fondly recall seeing bands like Yes, Supertramp, Rush, REO Speedwagon, Survivor, Shooting Star, Sammy Hagar, etc at some of the old venues they talk about. My guess is that many cities have similar stories. I returned to StL about 12 years ago and there are some great new music venues here, but compared to Chicago, Milwaukee, or Kansas City there are relatively few prog rock related shows for some reason (I guess poor attendance!?)...
I've got a couple various artists comps that KSHE compiled:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/4165215-KSHE
no time to view this now, but do they talk of Pavlov's Dog??
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
former Pavlov's Dog guitarist Steve Scorfina is one of the people that speaks about the music scene in St. Louis at the time. he talks more about that than his band but he does offer up some tidbits. Julia from Pampered Menial is #42 on the original KSHE's Klassics list.
i.ain't.dead.irock
As a guy who was born, raised and still living in the i should be all over this. I was only able to give this 30 minutes while i was finishing up my taxes a couple weekends ago but i really liked what i saw.
I feel pretty closely connected to this since i am a music junkie, the radio station KSHE 95 played a pretty large part in that (back when commercial radio was good up until the late 70's) and have always felt that St Louis had it's place in the history of rock and roll.
I need to forward this to my oldest sister, she used to hang out with Michael McDonald and Steve Scorfina back in the old Castaway days (fyi - McDonald and Scorfina were both Ferguson guys, which is now the epicenter of the "hands up don't shoot" movement).
A few random thoughts on the little bit that i did watch -
It seemed to dwell pretty heavily on KSHE, i hope it covers more detail on Chuck Berry, Ike & Tina, the local clubs (i know it briefly mentioned the Club Imperial and Castaways).
Please tell me they do bring Nelly into the fold.
Mama's Pride - as good as they were i didn't really see them as much more than the St Louis answer to southern rockers like the Allman Bros, Marshall Tucker, Charlie Daniels, ect. I didn't think their guitar arrangements sounded any more like horn arrangements than any other 2 guitar band back in the day.
I'm curious, was there any mention of The Aerovons? This St Louis band recorded their one and only album at Abbey Road using a lot of Beatles equipment, engineered by Geoffrey Emerick for what it's worth -
One good St Louis music doc deserves another
A very long time ago there was a guy named Gene Edlen who had a band called Rush that played around a lot before the band we all know with the same name hit the scene. This can be a great source of confusion for some older, burned out hippies that you talk to that have fond memories of seeing Rush in the small night clubs and VFW halls in St Louis before they hit the big time. (i wish i had some of those fond memories, the poor fellow passed before i ever had a chance to see him. Gene was a badass player who always played with no less than 1 Marshall stack)
I look forward to seeing the rest of this doc very soon, a lot of great memories and history for sure.
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