Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Authenticity, Creativity, Music, Queen
I love Queen.
Or more specifically, I love early Queen.
I can just about stretch to 1984 – after that, I accept their choices and output became rather questionable.
OK, so I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing them with Adam Lambert leading the stage, but from a musical point of view, it’s fair to say their best days are definitely numbered, but then at 70+ years of age, who can blame them.
That said, Brian May is still someone very special to me.
He basically made me pick up the guitar.
He gave me the desire to learn, the hunger to keep practicing and the confidence to play in bands and gigs all around the World.
Since those early days, I have done a lot of playing.
And bought a lot of guitars.
Classics. Custom made. Cheap as chips.
And while the closest I ever got to his handmade Red Special was a pretty dodgy Gordon Smith back in 1984, I’ve always thought about getting a custom made one of his.
I never did it for a few reasons.
I always thought it was a bit sad to have a guitar so synonymous with someone so famous and – frankly, with the amount of guitars I own – I couldn’t justify it.
But a couple of weeks ago, I accepted owning one is not going to make me any sadder than I already am so while my chops are a fraction of what they were when it was my life and my job, I took the plunge and last week, all my Brian May fantasies came true once and for all.
It might not make me play like him.
It might not even make me sound like him.
But it makes me feel insanely happy and has me playing guitar more than I have in years.
Now all I need is a poodle perm. Oh, and some hair.
Thank you Mr May. Again.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Bangkok Shakes, Childhood, Culture, Education, Experience, Happiness, Queen
When I was in my late teens, I would go to Rock City, every Friday night.
Rock City was a mecca for heavy rock music fans.
From 9 till 2am, it would play none-stop tunes at eardrum-busting volume.
There would be the classic songs by the classic bands – Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Queen, Whitesnake – but the best bit was when they would play something that was just breaking over in the US.
It was at Rock City I first heard Guns n’ Roses, Cinderella, Love/Hate, Badlands and countless others.
Eventually, Rock City gained an international reputation and so bands would not only send them copies of their new album before they were released, but they would ensure they visited and played at the venue as part of their World Tour.
I went to that smelly, sweaty, cramped and pulsating venue for absolute years.
Starting at the Tap and Tumbler pub round the corner before queuing up for entry in the sort of clothes a stripper would balk at before hanging around the edges of the club to say hello to the friends and acquaintances you knew before finally working your way through the heaving, throbbing masses to get into the middle of the dance floor so you could be swept up and pushed around by the intense energy of hundreds of people all loving the same thing at the exact same moment.
They were, quite frankly, some of the best times of my life.
I made friends.
It forged and influenced my love of music.
I discovered what being part of a community was really like.
It pushed me to experience and experiment with things I may never have done.
Which is all my way of justifying why – when I heard they were changing the floor after
40 years and were selling the old one off in pieces – I happily paid them £40 so I could own a piece of my history forever. [See pic at the top of this post]
Yes, it’s tragic.
Yes, it’s pathetic.
But as mid-life crises go, it’s less expensive than a Porsche.
Or an affair.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Comment, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Music, Queen
The picture above is a ‘behind the scenes’ photo of Queen preparing for a photoshoot.
Not just any photoshoot … but one that define their immortality.
Now looking at the state of them, you’d not thing that was possible.
John Deacon is wearing a Queen t-shirt for christsake.
But in the hands of the brilliant photographer Mick Rock, he turned these 4 lads into genuine music icons with an image that will outlive the band and define an album, a song and a video for decades ahead.
At a time where more and more people are trying to devalue the value of craft, I hope people see this and remember it’s not a cost, but an investment that pays for itself many times over.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Freddie, Prejudice, Queen
So this post is about Queen.
The band, not her royal highness.
Do I need to call the Samaritans for you now?
Anyway, as many of you know I’m doing a weird, long-term, creative project with a famous Rock band.
As part of that, their management connect me to all manner of weird and wonderful people and recently, they arranged for me to talk to someone who knew Freddie Mercury.
I should point out, him knowing Freddie was not the reason they connected us up, but it soon became the reason for me.
I couldn’t let such an opportunity pass and so after our chat about the task in hand, I told him I was a huge Queen fan and that I’d heard he was a long-time friend of Mr Mercury.
I was over-the-moon when he started telling me some personal anecdotes about Freddie, but there was one thing he mentioned that particularly grabbed my attention.
According to him, part of Freddie’s brilliance was that he was a ‘high class problem’.
He used those exact words.
What he meant by that was Freddie would never allow his issues or ideas to be ignored or fobbed off – by band, management or record company – because they knew if he had a problem, he would not let it pass until it was discussed or dealt with.
The reason I found this fascinating is that we now live in a time where more and more companies value ‘colleague complicity’ above all else. Where anyone who has a different opinion – especially a different opinion to management – is seen as the enemy, even tough in many cases, the motivation behind the challenge is simply a desire to have a better understanding of the viewpoint or wish to help the company achieve at a higher level.
With that in mind, I think it should be the goal of everyone to be a high class problem. It might be hard, it might be met with resistance – but if you are doing it for the right reasons, it’s the right thing to do however, as Mr Mercury’s friend told me, you better have earned the right to be that way or you end up simply being a “dickhead diva“.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, America, Anniversary, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Creativity, Culture, Daddyhood, Din Tai Fung, Friendship, Happiness, Home, Jill, London, My Fatherhood, Otis, Paul, Queen, R/GA, Relationships, Shelly
So here we are, the last month of 2018, and what a year it has been for me.
Started out in the sunny life that is Los Angeles and end it in the rainy life that is London.
From Deutsch to R/GA.
From Audi’s to the Tube.
From LA Din Tai Fung to the new London Din Tai Fung.
[Let’s be honest, I’d never of come if they weren’t here]
But I’m happy – very happy.
Sure, there’s a bunch of things I miss, but apart from the fact many of them will remain in my life for ever, the rest I can look back on as experiences I am fortunate to have had so I’m grateful I got to have them rather than sad I’ve lost them.
I know, who am I?
But all that is for a an even more boring post sometime in the next few weeks, so I’ll end this far-too-positive post with one of my new favorite songs, ‘Love Can Only Heal’, by Altered Bridge and the Slash band, Myles Kennedy.
I know you will think it’s bollocks – but apart from the fact that means you’re all a bunch of musical heathens who can’t appreciate the brilliance of a melancholy melody that’s orchestrated with a slowly building pulse of drama – you’re forgetting the alternative would be suggesting you listen to Queen.
Suddenly not so bad it is?
And it gets better … because for reasons that make no sense whatsoever, I’m going to be on my way to the US again by the time you read this. Which means you’re free from my blog rubbish till Thursday and given the following week is the final week of blog posts from me for 2018, you are exactly 7 posts away from ending the year on a positive.
If that doesn’t make you enjoy today, then nothing will.
Happy Monday.