Bedtime for Bonzo

It was on this day in 1948 that Led Zeppelin drummer supremo John Bonham was born. Sadly, he passed away rather young in 1980. But before he ascended that stairway to the pearly gates, Bonham's powerful, groovin' style earned him accolades as one of the best rock drummers of all time. Just listen to When the Levee Breaks for coffee table-breaking drum strokes.

Bonzo, as Bonham was nicknamed, was entirely self-taught (with some tips from fellow musicians in his hometown Redditch, England), but became highly influential in the rock genre, serving as a role model for young drummers for decades. The rock genre has spawned many great percussionists over the years: Keith Moon of The Who, Neil Peart of Rush, Ginger Baker of Cream, Stewart Copeland of The Police, Bill Ward of Black Sabbath, Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, and Alan White and Bill Bruford of Yes. So Bonzo is keeping pretty good company in the pantheon of drum gods. 

And just listen to hard rock and metal drummers from the 70's onward. There is no doubt that many of them were schooled in the Zeppelin/ Bonham techniques and took away at least nuggets of Bonzo's skin bashing system. 

I adored Zeppelin's music when I first heard it back in the 70's. Rock And Roll and Stairway To Heaven were among the first Zep songs I ever heard on the radio. The Immigrant Song and Livin' Lovin' Maid were a couple of my favourites back then. Take any of those songs and look at Bonham's contribution. Speed, physical power, creative licks, consistent time-keeping, and a distinctive sound - which was just plain heavy. You always know when Bonham's on the kit. I'm sure it's part style, part drum kit, and part mic set-up and recording methods. 

There is a unique "feel" to Bonham's playing style, a groove that sets it apart from many other drummers who may be flashy and precise but lack something propulsive, from the gut (or heart). Something that drives the song along effortlessly, and even with feeling. It's not something you hear every day, but Bonzo had it. So did other rock drummers like Alex Van Halen, Peter Criss, Ginger Baker, and Bill Ward, just to name a few. Not all show-offs but more than proficient and rather legendary, each in their own way. I guess it's a quality you are born with and cannot really learn. Or can you? Listen to Ramble On for a great sense of Bonham's natural sense of swing. 

Fear of a Black Tee

One of my coolest tees, a reproduction of a Rush

"Golden Age" concert shirt

The black T-shirt has become a staple of just about everyone's wardrobe these days. The colour black, after all, has a slimming effect - visually - so anyone with a few extra pounds might gravitate to this darkest colour to fool their friends and enemies. Then there's the fact that black simply looks cool. And everyone wants to look cool.

Here's my cock-eyed history of the cool black look:

The "bad guy" in old movies used to always wear black, as a symbol of darkness and evil, in diametric contrast to the good guy's white or light coloured attire. The film serials that were produced from the 1920's up until the 50's were also partly responsible for establishing tropes such as the dark-clad bad guys, often wearing masks, too. This look was effective in creating a menacing, dangerous and shadowy character. The western and horror genres made best use of black garments. Sometimes the crime thrillers, too.

Over the years, as film - and even comic book - characters were written with more and more complexity and often duality, it became more common to see the hero, or anti-hero, dressed in black. And with that, there became a blurring of the line between good and evil. Think of The Shadow, Batman (the blue of his cape and cowl represented black in the comics), The Punisher, The Crow, V (of V for Vendetta) and countless others. These were essentially good guys, but they operated outside of the law and didn't always display honest and moral attributes. All in black. 

And even as pop culture villains became "cooler" visually and otherwise, and more acceptable to like, their dark appearance became more desirable to imitate. Like Darth Vader, Pinhead, and Catwoman... hehe. Rebels and outsiders adopted the look with ease, and even the everyday person eventually came around to it, too. As time went on, even the truly good guys in pop culture, the heroes, were dressed in black. Men In Black (um, bad example), Bruce Lee, Neo of The Matrix. I hate to say it, but even Chuck Norris.... remember, he did that movie Good Guys Wear Black way back in '78. 

So... with that little pop culture history lesson behind us, maybe we can understand how black became the clothing colour of choice for cool cats. 

My Punisher tee, alongside The Essential Punisher

volume of the origins and early appearances of the

vigilante crime-figher

The black T-shirt became a thing for me when I was in my early teens in the 70's. My first shirt bore the logo of my favourite rock music radio station at the time, Q-107 (in Toronto). I wore that thing until the washing machine rendered it impossible to squeeze into any longer. I hate shrinkage. The next black tee I got was a Rush "2112" shirt, showing the band's famous album cover with the red star of the Solar Federation of the epic song cycle. 

The most popular concert shirts from the 80's were the half sleeve jobs, sort of styled after the Major League Baseball look. I had a bunch of those, and the black tees vanished from my closet. Then concert shirts weren't even a thing for me; I didn't really want to wear logos on my chest anymore. But enter the new millennium, and I'm back on the bandwagon. Now I've got several black tees, both plain ones and ones bearing images. I grabbed shirts of some of my all-time favourite bands, like Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, Rush, Priest, and Van Halen. There's a Star Wars Rebel Alliance logo shirt, The Punisher, and a Criterion (a video company catering to film aficionados) logo tee, and even a 30 Rock shirt.... as that TV series neared its final episode, I felt I needed something special to remember this favourite show by. Those are some of my favourite tees. All black. All cool.

Mad About Max

This past week, I've been revisiting the old Mad Max movie trilogy, in preparation for the just released new installment to the franchise, Mad Max: Fury Road. To tell the truth, I held off on Beyond Thunderdome, the second sequel from 1985. Thunderdome left a sour taste in my mouth each of the few times I saw it before and I didn't want to risk hating the idea of seeing the new film by watching it beforehand. So after seeing Fury Road last night, I watched Thunderdome today. 

Fury Road was an amazing experience, one that I've rarely felt in a movie theatre or in my home theatre. My re-watch of Thunderdome, on the other hand, was a big disappointment, but hey, I saw it coming. 

Young Mel Gibson, making a go of it in the

post-apocalyptic Australian wastelands

The original Mad Max was one of those movies that my high school pals and I used to rent on VHS back in the days when you'd also rent the VCR. Back in the early 80's, of course, when life was simpler. I'd seen it at least a few times before the 90's were over, but when I came back to the original Max movie this week, I'd forgotten much of the story, other than the explosive final scene. It was a little odd to see that it was actually a very quiet, uneventful tale up until the final fifteen or twenty minutes. A bit of a slow burn, something I don't normally mind, but I didn't really expect it here. Anyway, the big revenge sequence that wrapped up the movie was a doozy. Read my full review here.

The Road Warrior, AKA Mad Max 2, came along two years later, in '81, and WOW... what a huge leap forward in over-the-top mayhem. Right from the opening scene, Road Warrior set new standards for insanely exciting action, and it was incredible to see how skillfully director George Miller sustained that intensity throughout the entire picture. Definitely not a slow burn this time around. The film was mostly a non-stop car chase. But that barely describes how thrilling the visuals are.... definitely one of the top action adventures of the 80's. Full review here.

The third "chapter", Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, was a massive let-down, though. When I first saw it in theatres, I wasn't sure about the whole thing. The vision and tone of the first two Max movies were dropped in favour of a kid-oriented story. The dark, creepy and violent dystopian world of Max I and 2 never entered the picture here. Thunderdome was so slick and soft that it was sickening. Star actor Mel Gibson almost sleep-walked through the movie, barely interested in the events around him. I don't think he was impressed with the new direction of the series either. I go into more detail in my review here.

My CD movie soundtrack from the first Mad Max

film, scored by none other than rock royalty Queen's

guitarist Brian May

Thirty years later, director Miller brought Max back to the silver screen. With a new actor, Tom Hardy, in the title role, Mad Max: Fury Road is an even more amped up gig than The Road Warrior... as if we even thought that was possible. The action is relentless, the characters weird and unsettling and cool, and I was particularly struck by the movie score, which was often tribal drumming and crazed heavy guitar... and perhaps some electronic soundscaping to chill us to the bone. All very effective, unnerving, and unforgettable. The stuntwork was beyond anything I'd seen before, and I took into account the fact that the car chases and destruction were real practical effects, no CGI glitzing things up. Very wild and entertaining. Could this mean a sequel or two in the future?

Working Overtime.... BTO

My introduction to BTO (condensed down from Bachman-Turner Overdrive) was somewhere in the mid-ish 70's. I was hanging out at a school friend's house at the time, and we got it into our heads to explore his older brother's record collection. At this point in my life, I didn't know much about music beyond the Beatles, Monkees and Elvis, and those only courtesy of movies and shows on TV. So the artists I saw in this stack of records were strangers to me: Alice Cooper, Rush, Chicago, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, BeeGees, and so on. Oh, and BTO.

Said buddy put on a track or two from several albums, and I was very taken with the BTO that I heard. It's been a long, long time, but I am pretty sure the song I heard was Roll On Down the Highway. This was the lead-off track on the Best of BTO (So Far) album. And that was the first BTO I bought, not too long after that eye-opening listening session.

As I listen to Roll On Down the Highway at this moment, I am transported back to my early teens, into my basement corner bedroom, where I would sit on my bed with speakers blasting (a bit shrilly on my cheap first stereo) my first heavy rock'n'roll music. And BTO was among the first, that Roll On Down song my favourite, getting the most play on my wobbly turntable (with spare change taped to the tone arm to reduce skipping). Fond, fond memories. Oh, and sometimes my little brother would creep down into my cool cellar abode to partake of the spell-binding rebel music. Lucky kid - he was getting a good musical education far earlier than I did. Oh well, that's what older brothers are for, right?

One of the classic line-ups of the 70's BTO (from left):

Randy, Blair Thornton, Robbie Bachman, and Fred

Though I loved those songs, and put some serious wear and tear on that record, I never bought any of the band's studio albums. But I did play the hell out of that Best of BTO record, and later the tape, through the 70's and 80's. While in high school, I found Not Fragile in the library, and plugged in the headphones to check it out. Cool. Once CDs became a part of my collection, I made sure I added a little shiny disc copy of that same Best Of compilation. Somewhere along the line, I picked up very cheap, another comp called BTO's Greatest. There was a lot of overlap with the other disc, but there was a handful of fresh, unheard of tracks. From those two albums I assembled and burned my own slick "best of" CD. 

BTO were hairy, raucous Canadian good ol' boys, but they were also gifted musicians. Their prowess on their instruments and their knack for writing catchy radio-friendly songs cemented them a place in the history of Canadian rock music. 

Rockers like Roll on Down the Highway were plentiful in the band's catalogue, but moody, blues-jazz tracks like Blue Collar and Lookin' Out for #1 were equally well-crafted. The mesmerizing Blue Collar, with its lightly brushed percussion and soft guitar licks and sumptuous solo, was a favourite even back in the days when I appreciated screaming and booming guitars most. I was learning that variety was the spice of life.

Gimme Your Money Please was one of my favourites, too, hollering darkly funny lyrics and surging with party-hearty energy. And of course, the two biggest radio hits, still in rotation on classic rock stations, were You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet (speech impediment rock at its best) and Takin' Care of Business (which we hear everywhere nowadays - sports events, amusement park rides, and TV ads, for example).

And it was a revelation to learn years ago that Randy Bachman (the "B" in BTO) had previously been a big part of that other famed Canadian band, The Guess Who (you know, American Woman and These Eyes). Bachman, along with singer-songwriter wiz-kid Burton Cummings, kept The Guess Who in the money with their collective musical talents.

Now though Bachman is the more famous name, it was a fellow Winnipeg citizen, Fred Turner (the "T" in BTO), who brought to BTO (and its forerunner Brave Belt) a rock'n'roll edge. Turner, playing bass with finesse and drive, also provided the distinctive tough, gravelly vocals to the band's sound. 

The boys scored high on the singles charts with numerous hits off their first four albums, then things went a bit sour. The band used the name Bachman-Turner Overdrive until 1977, when Bachman left to pursue solo and other collaborative work. Under the leadership of Turner, they assumed the name BTO, the acronym only, for legal reasons. BTO carried on until 1980, when they disbanded, then Turner re-joined Randy for an album under the group name Union.

Bachman got back together with his Guess Who gang for a reunion tour. Then he rejoined BTO, then quit, rejoined, quit.... he just couldn't settle down, could he? I never followed anything BTO did after the 70's, really, though I know they reunited with Randy here and there for special events and the odd tour. A rather scattered late career resume, but man, the legacy they left behind will forever be imprinted in Canuck rock textbooks.