Dec 14

Facebook 2015-2020

FACEBOOK – 2015-2020

 

Named for main protagonist Luke Skywalker of the Star Wars saga, the Skywalkers is a Dutch duo that had a limited release on vinyl which I was fortunate to order.  One of the bandmembers, Jacco Gardner released his first solo album, Cabinet of Curiosities the month after my post.  The band’s farewell single, “Rosa” b/w “Creature of the Night” was released in April 2013.  However, their Facebook page, www.facebook.com/FreakbeatIsBack?fref=ts is still active.  

 

(January 2015/2)

 
*       *       *
 

A full-length album is planned in the Spring of 2015.  Brian Olive also has a Facebook page:  www.facebook.com/BrianOliveMusic .  

 

(February 2015)

 

*       *       *

 

In the summer of 1968, Haymarket Square was approached by the Museum of Contemporary Art to provide the music for a work of art on display at that time called The Original Baron & Bailey Light Circus, which had been put together by two college professors.  The Facebook and Google+ pages for the museum recently showed some drawings for the exhibit.  For the most part though, the exhibit seems to be remembered mainly as the source of the Magic Lantern album. 
 
(June 2015)
 
*       *       *
 

Using several of these sound tricks can be enough to completely change a song.  I am up to mid-2013 in loading up my Facebook posts into my website, and one song that I wrote about then is a long-time favorite called “Time Has Come Today” by the Chambers Brothers, which started out as an African-American gospel group.  The song was originally recorded in 1966 but had a completely different sound; it was next released on the band’s album The Time Has Come in November 1967 and became a hit single in 1968.  Wikipedia notes that it is “one of the landmark rock songs of the psychedelic era” and continues:  “Various effects were employed in its recording and production, including the alternate striking of two cow bells producing a ‘tick-tock’ sound, warped throughout most of the song by reverb, echo and changes in tempo.” 

 

(July 2015)

 

*       *       *

 

(First of all, it was Facebook who changed up the format of the Notes; I don’t like this much at all.  But it’s their show, so what can I do.) 
(August 2015)
* * *
Amanda Brix had been in an all-female band called the Lame Flames that was active in the Los Angeles area in the 1980’s.  They are described variously on the Internet as a rap trio and a heavy metal act (with Amanda Brix called a “sex goddess”).  Though the band has a Facebook page – www.facebook.com/The-Lame-Flames-137156196321030/ – they apparently did not release any records, and I am not sure that there are any YouTube videos out there either.  There are oodles of photos and posters on the Facebook site and elsewhere on the Internet though. 
 
(December 2015)
 

* * *

 

Besides my usual commitments at work and at home, I am still busily sorting out my past UARB/UARA posts into my website on Google Sites, which can be found at: . I am up to nearly 2,000 web pages now, and I am getting into the meat of the writing: I am now working on my “what might have been” post in June 2013 about “the day the music died” that includes info on various rock and roll pioneers. That was the first time that I exceeded the 65,536-character limit that Facebook has on their posts. That has happened several times since, including twice this year alone. I have made a couple of additions throughout the website in the past year: I now have introductory sections from Wikipedia (except naturally for the Under Appreciated pages) at the beginning of each web page. I also figured that I didn’t have quite enough colors yet, so I have marked place-names with violet (though I have not tried to set up any web pages on those).

 
(Year 6 Review)
* * *
As I mark 7 years of Under Appreciation, the sheer volume of what I have written staggers me. I have printed out hard copies of all of my Facebook posts – I just don’t trust “the Cloud” to always be there – and the pages measure more than 4 inches thick. I have set up web pages on what I have written about over the years through the May 2014 post, and they surely number over 5,000 web pages now. Eventually I guess I will set up a proper website, with all of the bells and whistles; but for now, Google Sites does everything I need it to do. The maximum size of 100MB was worrisome at first, but I later found that I could start as many sites as I want (five so far), and they talk to each other pretty well. The only annoyance is that I keep having to load up the photographs when I bring in a new Facebook post.
 
(Year 7 Review)
*       *       *
 
The above headline took my breath away when I first noticed it a few months ago on NBCNews.com:  “This Oscar Winner Has the Most Supportive Wife Ever”.  The wife in question is Holly Ramos, one of my Facebook friends as a result of this series of Under Appreciated Rock Band posts; and she was the bandleader in the UARB with the shortest name (Fur) coming at the end of the longest post (June 2013).  
 
Holly Ramos had tipped off her Facebook friends that her husband Tom Cross was up for an Oscar for Film Editing, and I had my eyes open during the 2015 Oscar ceremonies.  It might be my imagination, but I think I remember a flash of a few seconds toward that part of the crowd when I saw Holly reacting to the announcement of the winner.  In his acceptance speech, Tom Cross thanked, among others, his wife Holly Ramos and their two children. 
 
*       *       * 
 
When I first started loading up individual webpages in my website on the bands and albums and songs that I had written about in my Facebook posts, I began to wonder if I would ever finish that massive undertaking – ultimately, it amounted to more than 10,000 webpages.  I was keeping an eye on the gap between the current Facebook post and the one that I just finished putting into the website, and it seemed to be holding steady at about 2½ years.  In other words, setting up the web pages was taking about as long as I spent to write up the post in the first place.  At length, I got to the more recent posts that were made on a quarterly rather than a monthly basis; and I finally started to narrow that gap.  I got encouraged and pressed hard to wrap that up.  I now have everything sorted out and indexed and laid out on the website, as of sometime in the middle of last year. 
 
(Year 9 Review)
 
* * *
 
I suppose I could come up with even more posts about record collecting (five so far), women in rock (five also), rock and religion (five as well), and songwriting (six of those); but I would have a hard time getting motivated about any of that. I guess that I could put together another group of capsule reviews like I did about the albums on the CD rack that I took off the hands of a flea market dealer ages ago; those were a lot of fun. We’ll see. I already consider these posts to represent a pretty decent legacy that will hopefully outlive me.
 
Early in my Facebook experience, I noticed the ‘Notes’ section; and that seemed to be a good place for my UARB posts, rather than just putting them on the Feed. Currently, ‘Notes’ is pretty far down the list of the more than 20 sections of Facebook  to ‘Explore’.
 
* * *
But the best find of all, without question, is locating a copy of past UARA Thomas Anderson’s second album, Blues for the Flying Dutchman (1992). I had previously noted that the Village Voice said of him: “Thomas Anderson is clearly the greatest unknown songwriter on the planet.” This album knocks it out of the park and shows that their writer wasn’t just whistling “Dixie” with that remark. That, er, memorable time that I was drunk Facebooking for most of a night and woke up on the floor under my desk at 3:30 a.m. that I have written about previously? Early in my latest round of neurological problems that I still have no answers for? I had been playing Blues for the Flying Dutchman nonstop and full blast for most of that time (poor Peggy!).
* * *
 
The Honor Roll of the Under Appreciated Rock Bands and Artists follows, in date order, including a link to the original Facebook posts and the theme of the article.
 
Dec 2009 – BEAST; Lot to Learn
Jan 2010 – WENDY WALDMAN; Los Angeles Singer-Songwriters
Feb 2010 – CYRUS ERIE; Cleveland
Mar 2010 – BANG; Record Collecting I
Apr 2010 – THE BREAKAWAYS; Power Pop
May 2010 – THE NOT QUITE; Katrina Clean-Up
Jun 2010 – WATERLILLIES; Electronica
Jul 2010 – THE EYES; Los Angeles Punk Rock
Aug 2010 – QUEEN ANNE’S LACE; Psychedelic Pop
Sep 2010 – THE STILLROVEN; Minnesota
Oct 2010 – THE PILTDOWN MEN; Record Collecting II
Nov 2010 – SLOVENLY; Slovenly Peter
Dec 2010 – THE POPPEES; New York Punk/New Wave
Jan 2011 – HACIENDA; Latinos in Rock
Feb 2011 – THE WANDERERS; Punk Rock (1970’s/1980’s)
Mar 2011 – INDEX; Psychedelic Rock (1960’s)
Apr 2011 – BOHEMIAN VENDETTA; Punk Rock (1960’s)
May 2011 – THE LONESOME DRIFTER; Rockabilly
Jun 2011 – THE UNKNOWNS; Disabled Musicians
Jul 2011 – THE RIP CHORDS; Surf Rock I
Aug 2011 – ANDY COLQUHOUN; Side Men
Sep 2011 – ULTRA; Texas
Oct 2011 – JIM SULLIVAN; Mystery
Nov 2011 – THE UGLY; Punk Rock (1970’s)
Dec 2011 – THE MAGICIANS; Garage Rock (1960’s)
Jan 2012 – RON FRANKLIN; Why Celebrate Under Appreciated?
Feb 2012 – JA JA JA; German New Wave
Mar 2012 – STRATAVARIOUS; Disco Music
Apr 2012 – LINDA PIERRE KING; Record Collecting III
May 2012 – TINA AND THE TOTAL BABES; One Hit Wonders
Jun 2012 – WILD BLUE; Band Names I
Jul 2012 – DEAD HIPPIE; Band Names II
Aug 2012 – PHIL AND THE FRANTICS; Wikipedia I
Sep 2012 – CODE BLUE; Hidden History
Oct 2012 – TRILLION; Wikipedia II
Nov 2012 – THOMAS ANDERSON; Martin Winfree’s Record Buying Guide
Dec 2012 – THE INVISIBLE EYES; Record Collecting IV
Jan 2013 – THE SKYWALKERS; Garage Rock Revival
Feb 2013 – LINK PROTRUDI AND THE JAYMEN; Link Wray
Mar 2013 – THE GILES BROTHERS; Novelty Songs
Apr 2013 – LES SINNERS; Universal Language
May 2013 – HOLLIS BROWN; Greg Shaw / Bob Dylan
Jun 2013 (I) – FUR (Part One); What Might Have Been I
Jun 2013 (II) – FUR (Part Two); What Might Have Been II
Jul 2013 – THE KLUBS; Record Collecting V
Aug 2013 – SILVERBIRD; Native Americans in Rock
Sep 2013 – BLAIR 1523; Wikipedia III
Oct 2013 – MUSIC EMPORIUM; Women in Rock I
Nov 2013 – CHIMERA; Women in Rock II
Dec 2013 – LES HELL ON HEELS; Women in Rock III
Jan 2014 – BOYSKOUT; (Lesbian) Women in Rock IV
Feb 2014 – LIQUID FAERIES; Women in Rock V
Mar 2014 (I) – THE SONS OF FRED (Part 1); Tribute to Mick Farren
Mar 2014 (II) – THE SONS OF FRED (Part 2); Tribute to Mick Farren
Apr 2014 – HOMER; Creating New Bands out of Old Ones
May 2014 – THE SOUL AGENTS; The Cream Family Tree
Jun 2014 – THE RICHMOND SLUTS and BIG MIDNIGHT; Band Names (Changes) III
Jul 2014 – MIKKI; Rock and Religion I (Early CCM Music)
Aug 2014 – THE HOLY GHOST RECEPTION COMMITTEE #9; Rock and Religion II (Bob Dylan)
Sep 2014 – NICK FREUND; Rock and Religion III (The Beatles)
Oct 2014 – MOTOCHRIST; Rock and Religion IV
Nov 2014 – WENDY BAGWELL AND THE SUNLITERS; Rock and Religion V
Dec 2014 – THE SILENCERS; Surf Rock II
Jan 2015 (I) – THE CRAWDADDYS (Part 1); Tribute to Kim Fowley
Jan 2015 (II) – THE CRAWDADDYS (Part 2); Tribute to Kim Fowley
Feb 2015 – BRIAN OLIVE; Songwriting I (Country Music)
Mar 2015 – PHIL GAMMAGE; Songwriting II (Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan)
Apr 2015 (I) – BLACK RUSSIAN (Part 1); Songwriting III (Partnerships)
Apr 2015 (II) – BLACK RUSSIAN (Part 2); Songwriting III (Partnerships)
May 2015 – MAL RYDER and THE PRIMITIVES; Songwriting IV (Rolling Stones)
Jun 2015 – HAYMARKET SQUARE; Songwriting V (Beatles)
Jul 2015 – THE HUMAN ZOO; Songwriting VI (Psychedelic Rock)
Aug 2015 – CRYSTAL MANSION; Martin Winfree’s Record Cleaning Guide
Dec 2015 – AMANDA JONES; So Many Rock Bands
Mar 2016 – THE LOVEMASTERS; Fun Rock Music
Jun 2016 – THE GYNECOLOGISTS; Offensive Rock Music Lyrics
Sep 2016 – LIGHTNING STRIKE; Rap and Hip Hop
Dec 2016 – THE IGUANAS; Iggy and the Stooges; Proto-Punk Rock
Mar 2017 – THE LAZY COWGIRLS; Iggy and the Stooges; First Wave Punk Rock
Jun 2017 – THE LOONS; Punk Revival and Other New Bands
Sep 2017 – THE TELL-TALE HEARTS; Bootleg Albums
Dec 2017 – SS-20; The Iguana Chronicles
(Year 10 Review)
Last edited: April 7, 2021