Welcome to the first installment of The Overdrice Chronicles.
Writting you all from the burned up, draught stricken hills of Central Texas. We are finally getting some relief from the heat as Fall approaches. Its a welcome change.
Into the sea of blog pages I dive. Come enjoy a swim with me.
The Overdrice Chronicles is a new project for me and my outlet for thoughts, reflections, and critiques of music old and new. I will most likely focus on rock but I am also likely to touch on pop, alternative, and a little bit of old school country.
Now, I cut my teeth on Van Halen, Billy Idol, Gen X, Scorpions, Tom Petty, and a brief love affair with The Beatles and Stones. Later on came the INXS, The Cult, The Cure, Television, and the like. Not to mention Skid Row, Guns and Roses, and Cinderella.
I had a short romance with a girl who introduced me to Alabama, George Jones, George Strait, Lyle Lovett, and Merle Haggard. Its effects have been lasting.
Oh sure, U2 is in there as is Rush and The Clash and a whole slew of other bands. Just like you, my CD collection (I only recently stopped calling them albums) is diverse and I love them all.
As far as this page is concerned, we will run the gamet here as well. The topics are likely to be diverse and at times the writtings will be relatively unfocused and rambling in editorial style. Its the way most of us think, I always wondered why we cant write that way. I will write that way. Its my page.
On with the installment:
I recelntly started reading "Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga" by Ian Christe.
First off, let me say that it is an excellent book. While I am not finished reading it yet, Ian Christe starts the book by saying that before he undertook the writting of the book, he learned to play "Eruption". That is freaking awesome and Ian gets immediate props from me. Eruption shaped the way I thought about guitar playing and rock stardom when I was a pre-teen. I didnt believe that it was a guitar playing that when I first heard it.
Ian's writting style is straight forward and as entertaining as the characters he describes. Within the first ten pages of the book, Van Halen was reborn in my memory and in my imagination. I suddenly wanted to go to California. Not only go to California but to California in 1976. To crash a backyard party where Eddie, and Diamond Dave where building their chops and their army of fans. Would'nt that have been something to see?
When I was in high school I was a Van Halen fan. A fan to the max. I never saw them in concert. No I did'nt see them at the Texas Jam. Still, I lived to listen to that band.
I was quite by mistake really. My father bought me a black '79 Mustang as my first car. No, not lucky me. It was the interim, weird body style with a four cylinder engine. The upshot of the thing was that under one of the seats was a box of eight tracks. Of the five eight tracks, three of them were Van Halen tapes. The other two were....hmmm. You get my point.
It was not my first introduction to Van Halen. Several years earlier, I was at my older brother's new apartment. He said, "check this out" and put on the recently released Van Halen record. "Running with The Devil" droped my jaw, and still does.
In that black Mustang, for the next year and a half, my crew and I sang Van Halen song after song. Again it was by mistake or fate. The radio was broken so the tape player was the only thing that worked. Also, by the time I got the car in '83, new eight tracks were hard to come by. So Van Halen was it. I learned every crack of Dave's voice and every pick slide of Eddie's solos. The characeristic pop of Alex's snare hits and loose hi-hat crashes and his double kicks.
All those memories came back in a flood when I started Christie's book. I rushed right out and found an old copy of Van Halen and cranked it in my truck stereo just like back in the day. That is the hallmark of good writting. It inspires action. Thanks Ian. I look forward to reading the rest of the book. For all of you fans and semi-fans and "Van Haggar Only" types, go buy the book and dig in. You will enjoy it. I know.
I am currently finishing the book and re-learning to play "Running with the Devil" on guitar. Inspriation my friends, inspiration.
Writting you all from the burned up, draught stricken hills of Central Texas. We are finally getting some relief from the heat as Fall approaches. Its a welcome change.
Into the sea of blog pages I dive. Come enjoy a swim with me.
The Overdrice Chronicles is a new project for me and my outlet for thoughts, reflections, and critiques of music old and new. I will most likely focus on rock but I am also likely to touch on pop, alternative, and a little bit of old school country.
Now, I cut my teeth on Van Halen, Billy Idol, Gen X, Scorpions, Tom Petty, and a brief love affair with The Beatles and Stones. Later on came the INXS, The Cult, The Cure, Television, and the like. Not to mention Skid Row, Guns and Roses, and Cinderella.
I had a short romance with a girl who introduced me to Alabama, George Jones, George Strait, Lyle Lovett, and Merle Haggard. Its effects have been lasting.
Oh sure, U2 is in there as is Rush and The Clash and a whole slew of other bands. Just like you, my CD collection (I only recently stopped calling them albums) is diverse and I love them all.
As far as this page is concerned, we will run the gamet here as well. The topics are likely to be diverse and at times the writtings will be relatively unfocused and rambling in editorial style. Its the way most of us think, I always wondered why we cant write that way. I will write that way. Its my page.
On with the installment:
I recelntly started reading "Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga" by Ian Christe.
First off, let me say that it is an excellent book. While I am not finished reading it yet, Ian Christe starts the book by saying that before he undertook the writting of the book, he learned to play "Eruption". That is freaking awesome and Ian gets immediate props from me. Eruption shaped the way I thought about guitar playing and rock stardom when I was a pre-teen. I didnt believe that it was a guitar playing that when I first heard it.
Ian's writting style is straight forward and as entertaining as the characters he describes. Within the first ten pages of the book, Van Halen was reborn in my memory and in my imagination. I suddenly wanted to go to California. Not only go to California but to California in 1976. To crash a backyard party where Eddie, and Diamond Dave where building their chops and their army of fans. Would'nt that have been something to see?
When I was in high school I was a Van Halen fan. A fan to the max. I never saw them in concert. No I did'nt see them at the Texas Jam. Still, I lived to listen to that band.
I was quite by mistake really. My father bought me a black '79 Mustang as my first car. No, not lucky me. It was the interim, weird body style with a four cylinder engine. The upshot of the thing was that under one of the seats was a box of eight tracks. Of the five eight tracks, three of them were Van Halen tapes. The other two were....hmmm. You get my point.
It was not my first introduction to Van Halen. Several years earlier, I was at my older brother's new apartment. He said, "check this out" and put on the recently released Van Halen record. "Running with The Devil" droped my jaw, and still does.
In that black Mustang, for the next year and a half, my crew and I sang Van Halen song after song. Again it was by mistake or fate. The radio was broken so the tape player was the only thing that worked. Also, by the time I got the car in '83, new eight tracks were hard to come by. So Van Halen was it. I learned every crack of Dave's voice and every pick slide of Eddie's solos. The characeristic pop of Alex's snare hits and loose hi-hat crashes and his double kicks.
All those memories came back in a flood when I started Christie's book. I rushed right out and found an old copy of Van Halen and cranked it in my truck stereo just like back in the day. That is the hallmark of good writting. It inspires action. Thanks Ian. I look forward to reading the rest of the book. For all of you fans and semi-fans and "Van Haggar Only" types, go buy the book and dig in. You will enjoy it. I know.
I am currently finishing the book and re-learning to play "Running with the Devil" on guitar. Inspriation my friends, inspiration.
