Memoirs of a Music Junkie By L.E. Kalikow
When I was a kid (in the dark ages before color TV) the ‘perfect couple’ was symbolized by the athletic captain of the football team chasing the virginal head cheerleader. Today apparently supplanted by the skinny debate team captain chasing the sexy high school slut, as “Revenge Of The Nerds” has become a reality.
The Hollywood Sexy Star Machine
There’s something wrong in The Arts, rewarding the hucksters over the creators. Speculators sell and re-sell paintings for millions, without a penny in royalty or commission going to the artist or his family while a struggling musician with a hit record can starve as everyone in the sales and marketing food chain takes a bite.
My First Major Record Contract
To cope with internet overload, we allow algorithms to sift through and feed us bits and pieces to match our tastes or cosmetically enhanced anchormen (and anchorwomen) to spoon up headlines to the tune of tone-deaf sponsors. How does this affect the arts… and more specifically music?
Analog vs Digital Music
With the mention of ‘Civil Rights’ most people immediately think in racial terms. But since the 60’s another civil rights movement has been taking place as well… LGBT.
A Little History
In Part 1 of “Sex, No Drugs & Rock’N’Roll (Memoirs Of A Music Junkie),” I remember the reaction in 1966, when I invited Allen Ginsberg to speak at Indiana University, “Allen walked into the room with electric hair sticking out, except where it clung to his ruffled red flannel shirt. Holding hands with an anemic male companion, Ginsberg swished to the podium and took center stage while most homosexuals were still in the closet. The entire spectacle caught the dumbfounded ladies of the I.U. Poetry Society with no established roles of etiquette. So they sat like a school of fish with round mouths sucking wind.”
I just finished visiting my 92 year old mother at an ‘independent living’ home in West Palm Beach, and all I could think was, I’m not doing it! I remember sitting in high school and watching the track team marathon runners circling the school grounds until they collapsed, often throwing up along the way, concluding that wasn’t a sport for me.
Life Is Like A Hockey Game
Each character with his own ‘shtick’ pandering to a raucous dedicated following. You’ve got clown hair ‘Donald Dick’ displaying his digits, while ‘Little Boy Rubio’ flails insults, and ‘Bible Belt Cruz’ preaches the apocalypse, as ‘Kasich the Referee’ stands in the corner and does nothing.
As noted in “Sex, No Drugs & Rock’N’Roll(Memoirs Of A Music Junkie),”
“Whether its team spirit, patriotism, or organized religion, we humans have an uncanny knack for finding excuses to identify with a group so that we can beat up on those that don’t belong.”
America’s sexual attitudes are f*cked up!
Apparently the word ‘intercourse’ is okay but ‘fuck’ is dirty? You can stab a woman in her chest on TV as long as you don’t show her nipple?!?
Who makes these rules?
Above on the left is the cover art I submitted to publish my audiobook “Sex, No Drugs & Rock’N’Roll: Memoirs of A Music Junkie” to Amazon’s subsidiary Audible. It was rejected on the grounds it “contained nudity.” This, despite the fact that the cover had already been accepted in the paperback, album and eBook formats.
It’s hard to watch the “Glory Days” of the music I grew up with die. It’s not just the recent passing of such musical marvels as Natalie Cole, Glenn Frey, Maurice White, and David Bowie. It goes much deeper than that.
In 1971 when I brought my first major recording contract home to my attorney father, in my book “Sex, No Drugs & Rock’N’Roll: Memoirs Of A Music Junkie,” I recounted, “As my father read the recording contract, he just kept shaking his head. To him it bordered on legalized slavery. We needed a consulting opinion.” So, we visited a major entertainment lawyer at the time who, “made the distinction between legal and practical in the high-stakes music business, with one-sided contracts that reflected the risk. On the other hand, once successful, everything was renegotiable.”
Ever since the Scorsese/Jagger project was announced over a year ago, I’ve been waiting with Christmas anticipation for its opening. Having recently watched and re-watched the terrific CNN documentaries on both the 60’s and the 70’s, I now had a special interest in “Vinyl.” The Valentine’s Day pilot launch coincided directly with release of my own book living through the music business during those years in “Sex, No Drugs & Rock’N’Roll: Memoirs Of A Music Junkie.”