Life is what happens when you are making other plans~ John Lennon
An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind~Gandhi
The time is always right to do what is right~ Martin Luther King Jr.


Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Scooby Doo and Kiss: Rock and Roll Mystery

Hahahahahahahahaha. When I heard about this one, oh wow!! My sister says she wants to see it because she thinks it looks funny!! She thinks even the title is funny: Scooby Doo and Kiss: Rock and Roll Mystery! Hysterial!!! She also keeps asking me "Aren't you the least bit curious if it's good or not? You do like Kiss!" And not to mention, she now wants to get these little plush dolls of the guys in the band. She wants the Paul Stanley one because she says it has cute little chest hairs, the Peter Criss one because it's oh so cute, lol!! And her general excuse for this sudden love of all things Kiss is that "I'm trying to expand my horizons!"

Summary
-Mystery Inc. has been called to investigate a serious of suspicious happenings at Kiss World- an all Kiss-themed amusement park. The self-proclaimed "Kings of the Nighttime World" help out and discover that a being known as the Crimson Witch has summoned a creature called the Destroyer from the world known as Kissteria. Not shockingly, the plan of this monstrous duo is, surprise surprise, to destroy the world!

Not really shocked here. Women always seem to go for Paul Stanley, lol!!



Just like the Creatures of the Night album



This is an almost reference to the cover for the band's Rock and Roll Over album, where each person's true personality was captured






Cast
-Frank Welker: Fred Jones/Scooby Doo
-Mindy Cohn: Velma Dinkley
-Grey Griffin: Daphne Blake
-Matthew Lillard: Norville "Shaggy" Rogers
-Gene Simmons: The Demon
-Paul Stanley: The Starchild
-Eric Singer: The Catman
-Tommy Thayer: The Spaceman
-Penny Marshall: The Elder
-Pauley Perrette: Delilah Domino
-Rachel Ramras: Shandi Strutter
-Darius Rucker: The Destroyer
-Doc McGhee: Chip McGoo

Did You Know?
-As a side note, take a look at some of the character names. Most if not all them reference something related to Kiss. "Chip McGoo" is voiced by and based on Kiss manager Doc McGhee, "The Elder" references their only attempt at a concept album called Music from The Elder, "Delilah Domino" references the songs "Domino" from their Revenge album and "Modern Day Delilah" from Sonic Boom. "The Destroyer" references the album Destroyer, "Shandi Strutter" references the songs "Strutter" from their debut album and "Shandi" from Dynasty
-During one scene, a psychic opens the mystic book and symbols start appearing. They include an ankh, a fox, a cat, planets, the initials "BK" and the initials "MSJ". Each of these represent some member of Kiss. "BK" is Bruce Kulick, "MSJ" is Mark St. John, the fox is Eric Carr, the ankh is Vinnie Vincent, the cat is Peter Criss, the planets are Ace Frehley

Peter Criss


Ace Frehley

Bruce Kulick


Eric Carr


Mark St. John

Vinnie Vincent
-At the beginning of the movie, when Kiss is doing their outfit change, they pay respect to the sailor scouts of the popular anime cartoon Sailor Moon (1995)



-The character Chip McGoo is strongly based on Kiss' manager Doc McGhee, who also voices that character


Doc McGhee
-In the movie, The Starchild paints a picture of Daphne and an intentionally insulting picture of Fred. In real life, Paul Stanley paints as a hobby and is quite accomplished at it, so much so that he often donates his paintings to be auctioned off for charity
-This is the second time that Paul Stanley has lent his voice to a characterization of himself in a Scooby Doo cartoon
-As Kiss powers up into their superhero alter egos, the colors of each person reflect the four solo albums released simultaneously in 1978: green (Peter Criss/Eric Singer), red (Gene Simmons), Purple (Paul Stanley), Blue (Ace Frehley/Tommy Thayer)



















-The opening titles reference the Kiss album covers of Creatures of the Night, Destroyer, Alive! Dynasty, Love Gun




Broken Music: A Memoir by Sting

I have read this book and have to say it was definitely interesting
I am learning all sorts of stuff I never knew about Sting. For example, he was named Gordon after a grandfather. His maternal grandfather, Ernest, is who Sting's father was named after while his grandmother, an Irish woman named Agnes White, instilled a love of reading.

He has a younger brother named Phil and their father, named Ernest, worked in Swan Hunter's shipyard, working on the giant ships that needed to be repaired or built. He talks about growing up in Newcastle, about trying to figure out why those from Newcastle are called "Geordies". After his father left the shipyard, he went to work as the manager of a dairy. He enlisted his son, then still known as Gordon (it would be years before he would be known by his stage name) to work with him on the delivery routes for the milk. He would have to remember the numbers of the house, how many bottles each house received, if there were any changes and if so, report them back. He describes his mother, Aubrey, as a beautiful but flirtatious woman and also a member of the Church of England parish while his father Ernest is strictly Catholic. He describes an eerie time when he caught his mother having an affair with a new employee at his father's dairy. He described the world changing for him after that.

Not to mention, he seems to have a pretty skeptical view on religion. For example, the first time he went to confession, he said he didn't have anything to confess about. So he made up a lie and confessed for that. Not to mention, he talks about the first time he masturbated. I could have read the whole book without having to know that detail, lol!! That's the last thing I want in my head, of a preteen Sting getting off into his hand, lol! He also describes being embarrassed at the thought of his mom discovering what those suspicious-looking stains on his bedsheets, lol!

He talks about going to his grandmother's house and playing the piano, which instilled a deep love of music, along with going to a music store in Newcastle and getting a guitar along with a book on how to play it along with guitar strings. He thought of playing the guitar as a way of coping with the now high tension household he lived in. As time went on, his parents would fight. On Thursday nights, his mother would say she is going to visit one of the dairy employees, Nancy, at her house, when in reality, she was probably going off to see her new boyfriend.

He got a guitar and started playing music with these two brothers named Pete and Ken Brigham. They both play music as well, Pete playing a bass guitar. One night, Pete is unable to play bass and Gordon (again, he won't be known by his stage name for some time) picks up the bass and finds it is definitely different from a regular guitar in the sense that it has only four strings and is slightly heavier. When he was younger, he had a friend named Tommy Thompson. They were both close until they entered grammar school. There was a very prestigious grammar school in Newcastle called St. Cuthbert's. Sting and his friend Tommy vied for scholarships, with Sting winning one and Tommy not. Tommy was then sent to a secondary modern school, which from the impression I get from reading, is not a very good one. He sadly says that when he was away at college, his father told him that his friend Tommy died from being burned to death. He had set a fire in his fireplace, fell asleep and the house burned down with Tommy in it.



Sting talks about getting caned 42 times for nothing except being in the wrong place at the wrong time, having the wrong look on his face or hanging with the wrong crowd. He describes getting caned as getting cut by a rapier and also describes it as cruel and unusual punishment. Not to mention, he laughingly says that no matter how tough you think you are, you will be shedding tears. He laughs as he says that he and other kids who got the cane tried to work their way around it, such as stuffing books down your pants, wearing extra sets of underwear, etc. but the teacher administering it would check you. He talks about a teacher there helping him understand math and another teacher further instilling in him the love of reading.

He describes going to see Jimi Hendrix for the first time. He talks about going to the Central Station bathroom to change clothes, doing it slowly so as not to drop his clothes on the probably venereal disease-infested floor. After waiting in line to see him at a nightclub, which he would normally have been too young to get in but passes for eighteen due to his height, he says it blew his mind not only because of his guitar playing, but Jimi being the first black man he's ever seen.

His first real girlfriend was a woman named Deborah Anderson. She worked as a secretary for a legal firm in Newcastle. After working short stints as a bus conductor and construction worker after dropping out of a college for a teaching course, he takes a job as a tax officer. This is where he meets said girl named Deborah. He talks about his absolute embarrassment during his job at the construction site. One day, his mother made him small cucumber finger sandwiches that he said "would not look out of place at a vicar's garden party". He was extremely embarrassed by this as those around him were working class and had regular sandwiches and such. He laughingly said "Note to self: I'm packing my own lunch next time". One night, he meets a musician named Gerry and joins his band, called Earthrise, whose singer Megan is Gerry's girlfriend. She and him hit it off, but things fall apart. He says that almost every woman he has dated has ended in heartbreak.

He talks excitedly about appearing on a Miles Davis album, called You're Under Arrest. Miles asked him if he knew French. After replying that he did, he had a near full blown panic attack. Miles said he had five minutes to translate the famous Miranda Rights in French. Panicking, he ran out to the receptionist of the music studio and asked to borrow the phone. After phoning his home in London in an attempt to get ahold of his wife Trudie, who he knew spoke French fluently, his housekeeper told him she was at a restaurant. After asking for the phone number, he called and got a hold of her and asked her to translate the Miranda Rights in French. He ran back and was told to shout them as loud as possible into a microphone. Afterwards, Miles said "You're now on a Miles Davis record!" Seems like an awful lot of trouble for just a few lines in a foreign language.



Also, the band he was in before joining The Police was a band called Last Exit, which was the Ronnie Pearson Trio, which was the Phoenix Jazzmen originally. It was in 1976 during a Last Exit gig where Sting first met Stuart Copeland, who was the drummer for art rock band Curved Air. Sting came to get his iconic moniker after wearing a black and yellow striped sweater during an early gig with the Phoenix Jazzmen. Also, his first wife was a stage actress named Frances Tomelty and with her they had their first child, a son they named Joe in honor of her father. Later on, Frances and Sting would have another child, a daughter they would name Kate. What is ironic is that Sting was 24 when he first became a dad, the exact same age that his father was when Sting was born. After accepting an offer from Stuart to form a new band, they called this new band The Police. Their early stuff was punk, thrash metal-type stuff, certainly not the new wave-pop rock stuff they would be known for later. Later on, Sting would marry actress Trudie Styler and would have two kids, a daughter named Mickey and a son named Jake. He and soon to be wife Trudie would marry later on and three years later would bear the the terrible burden of losing both his parents to cancer and not going to the funerals. He said that he didn't want the funerals of his parents to become a media circus if some paparazzi caught the famous Police front man attending a funeral

Appearing in the magazine Harper's Bazaar. Man, he's still pretty ripped for his age, lol!!


He and current wife Trudie Styler

The band he became famous with: The Police

Friday, April 22, 2016

April Birthdays

Since it's April, time to say Happy Birthday to the following people

Eddie Murphy
-Birth name: Edward Regan Murphy
-DOB: 4/3/1961
-Where: Brooklyn, New York
-His mother Lilian was a telephone operator and father Charles Edward Murphy, was a transit police officer
Robert Downey Jr
-DOB: 4/4/1965
-Where: New York City, New York
-Known for speaking sarcastic but humorous lines with no emotion on his face
John Cena
-Birth name: John Felix Anthony Cena
-DOB: 4/23/1977
-Where: West Newbury, Massachusetts
-Is of French-Canadian, English and Italian descent
Jet Li
-Birth name: Li Lian Jie
-DOB: 4/26/1963
-Where: Beijing, China
-Provided motion capture work for the video game Rise to Honor
Jamie Bamber
-Birth name: Jamie St. John Bamber Griffith
-DOB: 4/3/1972
-Where: Hammersmith, London, England
-Bamber is his mother's maiden name
Whatever England is doing to make hot guys, for the love of God please keep it up!
 
Jeremy Clarkson
-Birth name: Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson
-DOB: 4/11/1960
-Where: Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England
-Known for his frequently opinionated outbursts
Paul Nicholls
-Birth name: Paul Gerald Greenhalgh
-DOB: 4/12/1979
-Where: Bolton, Lancashire, England
-His parents were a roofer and a psychiatric nurse
Wow! English guys are gorgeous!!!!
Peter Davison
-Birth name: Peter Malcolm Gordon Moffett
-DOB: 4/13/1951
-Where: Streatham, London, England
-Has three sisters named Barbara, Shirley, Pamela

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Wow!! I thought this would never happen, lol

Black Sabbath bassist and lyricist Terence "Geezer" Butler is thinking of writing an autobiography. I would sooooooooo read this! He seems like an extremely interesting person.
He says one of the reasons for the sudden interest in this is so that way his grandkids can learn about him firsthand. According to the radio show Kill Your Stereo: "I'd like to write a memoir for my grandkids, because by the time they are grown, I'll be long gone, and I'd like them to learn about me from my own hand rather than hearsay"

Can you believe this?!?!?!?!?!

Led Zeppelin is on trial for Stairway to Heaven!
Yes, you read it right. Led Zeppelin is on trial in Los Angeles after claims that the song copied the song "Taurus" by band Spirit. The band's founder, Randy California, is suing Zeppelin

On May 10, according to the Washington Post, the lawsuit states, on Randy California's behalf two years ago, that Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, the iconic vocalist and guitarist for Zeppelin, copied parts of the song "Taurus" to use for their song "Stairway to Heaven". A US District judge named Gary Klausner says that while the songs do sound similar, they're common enough to be completely meaningless and thus harmless

The judge had this to say. "While it is true that a descending chromatic four-chord progression is a common convention that abounds in the music industry, the similarities here transcend this core structure. For example, the descending bass line in both Taurus and Stairway to Heaven appears at the beginning of both songs, arguably the most recognizable and important segments. … Additionally, the descending bass line is played at the same pitch, repeated twice and separated by a short bridge in both songs."

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Robert Plant: A Life by Paul Rees

This is the title of a book about Led Zeppelin front man Robert Plant. Not to mention, back then he was so incredibly cute!! I guess I'm a sucker for blonde hair, blue eyes or a cute English accent. All three on a guy? What a hunk, lol!!! Even today, I still think he's handsome for his age. Yeah sure, he's a little rough on the eyes, what with wrinkles and facial hair, but he's still handsome and able to hit those high notes. AWESOME and still handsome!!!
I'm reading it so far and it's good so far. I've only been reading it since yesterday and it's awesome. Not surprisingly, like all biographies, this one talks about his upbringing, being raised by an engineer named Robert, who the subject of this book is named after, and his mother Celia. What some may not know is that Robert Plant has a younger sibling, a sister named Alison. The book talks about his father taking him to see the Wolverhampton Wanderers, the local football team

Hard to believe this kid...

...grew into this singer. Who cares if he's rough looking? Rock and roll for you!
He has been in quite a few bands prior to joining Zeppelin. Not shockingly, like most early British bands, they were blues-based or pop-based bands. The bands he was in include Black Snake Moan, New Memphis Bluesbreakers, Crawling King Snakes, Obs-Tweedle, Listen. One song he would come to sing quite frequently is Robert Johnson's "Travelling Riverside Blues" or known as "The Lemon Song". With it's risqué lyrics, he seemed to make it work. Most people who worked with him early on said he had that kind of rock-star aura around him, like he was a person who could definitely make it in the music business because he had that type of confidence. The book describes him with his good looks as being the oh so typical good looking rock god. The book talks about him doing all this music stuff when he was still in primary school at King Edward VI Primary School. Unlike a lot of the students, who had short hair, he was trying to grow his blonde mane in to an Elvis-type haircut, which all but annoyed the headmaster and professors there. Also, he seemed to be friends with a lot of people, including Terence "Geezer" Butler, now of Black Sabbath fame. Considering that all the members of Black Sabbath came from Aston, in Birmingham, and Robert Plant and John Bonham came from another part of Birmingham, they almost always ran into each other.

If I were at a Led Zep concert back then, I'd probably be staring at him. He's handsome!!!


Jeez, you think those jeans could be any tighter?!?!?

His first wife was a woman named Maureen Wilson. She was born in West Bromwich, or "West Brom" as I'm sure it's referred to by locals. Her family had emigrated to England from Goa, India. She had a younger sister named Shirley, who was dating a friend of Rob's. Not shockingly, Rob was good friends with John "Bonzo" Bonham. His wife Pat often described Rob as daft and said that she didn't want John hanging with him because it would end in financial ruin. During Zeppelin's first inaugural tour of the US, he met up with the Plaster Casters, a group of girls dedicated to making plaster molds of rock stars who were "gifted". Rob politely refused. A lot of people often described Rob as gentle, polite and a general hippie who often wooed girls with flowers and poetry. With his wife Maureen, they would have two kids, a daughter named Carmen and a son named Karac Pendragon Plant. Apparently, his middle named meant "head dragon" in Welsh. When he found out his son died at age seven from an infection, he had a complete mental breakdown. In fact, the song "All My Love" is a soulful tribute to his lost son. As the 1970s rolled into the 1980s, Plant started to think about things outside Zeppelin.


L-R: Jesse, Carmen, his grandson and granddaughter (Carmen's children on either side of Robert), son Logan Plant and his wife

As years went on, "Stairway to Heaven", a song that Zeppelin is extremely known for, Plant's feelings toward the song would take a negative turn, saying the lyrics were "hippie dippy". He would do everything in his power to distance himself from that song as much as possible. Not to mention, guitar player Jimmy Page would marry his girlfriend, a French model named Charlotte Martin and would conceive their first child, a daughter named Scarlet. As the years went on, Rob figured out how to control the audience rather than the shy awkwardness of his earlier bands, one of which was called the Band of Joy, which featured Bonham on drums.

Unlike the other members, whose vices probably included drugs, Rob's vice was being a womanizer. He loved the ladies. But when he was not on tour, he went to Jennings Farm, near his home in Birmingham. That is where he lived with his wife Maureen and their now two kids.

During a vacation on the Greek island of Rhodes, Robert, his wife Maureen, his two kids, Karac and Carmen and Jimmy Page's daughter Scarlet were in a rented Austin Mini when Maureen lost control of the car and they ended up in a wreck. Robert broke his right arm and leg and ankle, Karac broke his leg, Maureen's pelvis was shattered, and told that she would have problems giving birth later on because it would be near impossible to pull the baby's head out and friends of theirs were following in a car behind them. They told Jimmy, who was out of the country with his wife for some odd reason, that his daughter had been in a wreck. The Greek hospital wouldn't allow an English doctor on site to help, so they group had to be essentially smuggled out of the hospital under the blanket of night. Maureen also needed a blood transfusion for her injuries and being of Anglo-Indian descent, her blood type was rare. Luckily for her, her sister was with her; she was in the other car behind them. After that, Robert and one of Zeppelin's crew members flew out to LA to begin work on their next album. This crew member, Benji LaFevre had to act as nursemaid to Rob, with things like lifting him into bed, undressing and redressing him, bathing him and helping him use the bathroom. It is said that to this day, Robert is unable to fully extend his damaged right arm. Not to mention, because of his broken leg, he had to sit down, which meant he was unable to breathe properly and get the right amount of air into his lungs to hit extremely high, air raid siren-type wails and sustain those notes. He was almost a shell of his former self.

With all the negative goings on in Zeppelin, Robert started thinking about quitting the band and going solo. Then his world came crashing down when he got a call saying that his then seven year old Karac had died from an infection. One of the crew members for Zeppelin went into Rob's room to see him with his head in his hands and crying. He, John Bonham and Benji LaFevre flew home for Karac's funeral. He kept blaming himself for his son's death, with the typical idea of "If I were here, he wouldn't have died".

After that, he started thinking about a solo career. The early to mid 1980s saw Robert emerging as a solo artist, releasing albums such as Now and Zen, Pictures at Eleven, Shaken N' Stirred. Ironically enough my stepdad has all three of these albums. Now and Zen ended up faring more successful because it was more of a classic rock album rather than Pictures at Eleven and Shaken N' Stirred because those used the technology that was available at the time, suffice to say it was new-wave technology such as drum machines and keyboards, and the music was more R&B, blues-based. He played at the somewhat successful Farm Aid event, where it was said that there was somewhat of a Zeppelin reunion because he, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were there. But it was said that he was almost trying to relive the ghosts of the past because he had cut his hair short, was not wearing the usual t-shirt and tight jeans like he used to and his voice sounded strained. He also talks about his daughter Carmen dating a bass guitarist and being told by this guitarist that "Black Dog" had a mistake in it.




Not to mention, he started a romance with his ex-wife's sister, Shirley. That didn't last. It has been said that Plant is a womanizer, but he likes to enchant women with his enormous charisma, kindness and gentlemanly charms, as well as poetry and flowers. Ever the proverbial hippie. When Eddie Trunk of That Metal Show interviewed him years later, he said "At the end of the day, I'm just an old hippie." Rob married years later and had another child, Logan. Also, he's a grandfather because his daughter Carmen has a child. Once when he and his niece were getting a photo together, people actually thought they were dating because she was a beautiful blonde in a tight dress until someone explained the beautiful blonde was his niece, who he had his arm around. Not to mention, he has a son named Jesse Lee Plant, whose mother's identity is unknown.



In 2008, he received two very high honors. He was made Vice President of the Wolverhampton Wanderers, a football team he has supported for the last 55 years and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 2007, he and the rest of Led Zeppelin reunited for a series of concerts at the O2 Arena in London. This small tour of theirs was made into a concert film called Celebration Day. On drums they had none other than Jason Bonham. The band tore through Zeppelin classics such as "Communication Breakdown", "Black Dog", "Immigrant Song", "Good Times Bad Times", etc.



In more recent years, he has been doing some side work with country singer Alison Krauss. Both of them appeared on the CMT show Crossroads, which pairs rock musicians with country musicians. Not to mention, he's been working on some solo stuff. One of the people helping him with that is country musician Patty Griffin, who he has been dating for the last few years. One funny comment is that once Robert brought someone home who was younger than his daughter Carmen and she replied "Robert, the next time you bring someone home, can you make sure they are older than I am?" That's the thing; he has that roving eye, always an eye out for the ladies. In more recent times, he has a band called the Sensational Shape Shifters. Also, one time he had met Adele backstage at Live with Jools Holland because she was premiering her song "Someone Like You" while he was debuting some solo stuff he had written. He kissed her on the cheek and told her "You make me proud to be British".
















In 2013, things took a turn for the straight up eerie. He had to file a restraining order against a woman named Alyson Billings, who was obsessively stalking Robert. She sent him notes saying things like he was betraying her for seeing another woman and such.
Robert Plant and Patty Griffin