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Oh, we won’t give in, let’s go living in the past

Posted on by brucehhackett

We all say and write things we later regret.  We change our minds, we temper our more strident opinions, we gain a little wisdom and rethink our naive viewpoints.  We hope for forgiveness regarding our more egregious statements, and we pray that our more regrettable thoughts will be lost with the passage of time.

But for those of us who ever wrote under a byline, well, we must face facts:  Everything is still there in print to forever haunt us.  (These days, every email/text/twitter remark is apparently saved in data banks forever and ever, so I guess I have a lot of company now.)

From 1979 until 1994, I wrote as a staff writer and freelancer for the Sun Newspapers and Scene Magazine in Cleveland, Ohio, writing reviews of local concert appearances and new album releases.  For a rock music fanatic like me, it was a dream job.  Not only did I get to see the best bands, from great seats, for free, I was sometimes even paid for my time “working,” with free parking to boot.

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Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name

Posted on by brucehhackett

How do rock bands select their names?

In its infancy, rock and roll music was played by bands and artists with simple, straightforward names that tended to fall into three general categories:

Somebody and The Somethings:  Many dozens of bands used this linguistic structure, from Bill Haley and His Comets to Little Anthony and The Imperials, from Freddie and the Dreamers to Paul Revere and The Raiders.  Among other things, this allowed the record companies to eventually spin off the leader as a solo act, like Tommy James (without The Shondells) and Diana Ross (without The Supremes).

The Numbers:  The charts were full of groups whose names identified the number of members:  The Four Seasons, The Four Freshmen, The Kingston Trio, The Dave Clark Five, Sir Douglas Quintet.

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