Three Personalities of a Great Known for Wrong Reasons Musician or A Story Of John Mayer

When I ask people what they think of John Mayer I recognize two constantly repeating answers. The first is that he’s a great musician but to much of a pop singer and the second is that he’s great. It it’s different and the answer’s background often has to do with musical background or knowledge in music. What he really is and what we think of him is of course dependent on personal experience, but if we look behind and try to educate the unknowledgeable and not caring or if we try to explain to well educated what John Mayer is.

Mayer was originally schooled as a classical guitarist but always had a lot of love for the genre of blues. After a short time spend on Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mayer moved to Atlanta where he gained a lot roots and experience that started his early music career. He was a well known act in the nightclubs circuit of Atlanta and it was around this time that Mayer got signed by Aware Records and released his first full length album ‘Room For Squares’ with hits like ‘Neon’ and the grammy winning ‘Your Body Is A Wonderland’. It was first after his ‘Heavier Things’ in 2003 that Mayer considered his fame that big that he dared to change his concept which lead to the forming of ‘The John Mayer Trio’ in 2005.

About his past and background Mayer says following in his Live Concert/Documentary ‘Where The Light Is: Live in Los Angeles’ from 2008: ‘I come from playing guitar in alone in a room, that’s my story... I must have played alone in a room for eight years’. That’s the schooling that makes us understand the basic fundamentals of John Mayer. After his debut with the Trio where Mayer started to convey his musical roots into his music that he was making. When Mayer talks about the start of the Trio he says that it was an antidote that helped him get rid of the cornered feeling he felt that had gotten to with his pop melodies.

Shortly after the debut of ‘The Trio’, Mayer got back with his band and created ‘Continuum’ that was released in 2006. Keeping his pop sensibility, he brought on many of the influences from ‘The Trio’ and mixed it together to a mellow, blues, melodic critical success. During this time Mayer has shown us many sides of himself, an acoustic, a blues and a pop man hidden in the shy and mysterious personality of John Mayer. When Mayer talks about how he wants his career he simply says that he enjoys when you get something in your grasp, he says: ‘Once you caught it, you throw it back into the water and that’s really what I want to do my whole career’.

Mayer has pulled off everything from his own pop melodic love songs to Hendrix’s ‘Bold As Love’ and ‘Who Did You Think I Was’ including his last year acoustic cover of Tom Petty’s, ‘Free Falling’. Through all this Mayer has showed a calmer side and with his biggest hit ‘Waiting On The World To Change’, people of all musical circles always has something to say about Mayer and artists in all genres have worked with Mayer, including Hip-Hop Artist Kanye West to the blues legends Buddy Guy and B.B King.

Mayers blues influences and great interest to the world as far as politics goes is a growing subject matter for Mayer. With humor his personality has made the reputation of Mayer to be a perfectionist and sometimes a arrogant man, still inside the head of this man lies different music styles that only can be compared to the personalities of folk singer/songwriter or legend Bob Dylan. With a touch of humor Mayer claims that no one have seen all of him. Mayer likes to play with music and he is an explorer of importance as being one of few musicians bringing the heavier influences of Blues and Rock into the pop music today and as a better guitarist than singer he has really showed the basic fundamentals of being from the roots of great music pays off, he is a symbol to the instrumental, basics of learning and that’s why I choose to totally love the music of Mayer, together with his original sound, influences and depth.

The Records of John Mayer; 'Inside Wants Out' (1999), 'Room For Squares' (2001), 'Any Given Thursday' (Live), 'Heavier Things' (2003), 'Try! John Mayer Trio Live Concert' (2005), 'Continuum' (2006), 'Village Session' (2007) & 'Where The Light Is: John Mayer Live in Los Angeles' (2008).

Elliot Smith, A Musical Mastermind, Driven by the Depts of Life

On March 23, 1998 Elliott Smith walks up on the stage of the Kodak Theatre to perform his song ‘Miss Misery’ from the film ‘Good Will Hunting’. 5 years 7 months later, the musician is found dead in Los Angeles, CA. The rumors claim that Smith had stabbed himself numerous times in his chest. The music, Smith left behind him reflects the tragic death in many ways. We don’t know much about Smith and his deeper thought, the only proof of his emotional journey through life is what we hear from his music, that lives on with us to today.

Elliott Smith was born in Nebraska and later moved to Duncanville, near Dallas in Texas where he was partly raised. After moving to Portland, Oregon, Smith wrote his first songs at the age of 14. He became a member of the band Heatmiser and debuted in 1993 with an EP called ‘Dead Air’. One year later a terrific solo career took it’s start as Smith released his first full length album, ‘Roman Candle’. It was not until 1997, at his third album release with ‘Either/Or’ that Smith reached the main room of the musical independent industry.
Smith’s dark, emotional music had great influences from as well as Nick Drake, as his lifetime idols ‘The Beatles’. What he came to discover was and give his fans was a deep view, that reflects around life and the larger meanings of it. Picked up by Gus Van Sant in 1997 for the movie production of ‘Good Will Hunting’, Smith’s ‘Miss Misery’ was nominated for best original song at the 1998’s Academy Award.

As far as we know, Smith was suffering from a serious depression, which reflected through his music. And after have releasing ‘XO’ in 1998 and one of the heavier, more emotional albums Figure 8’, Smith started working on what came to be his lifetime project called ‘From a Basement on a Hill’.
Elliott Smith never got see his finished project due to a suspected suicide in Los Angeles on October 21, 2003. The murder/suicide is still to this day unsolved and the investigation is yet until this day open. What we know of Smith is not much, a shy person with deep thought of life has left behind us more than we know. Many like to think that Smith’s music reflects his emotions, he is therefore one of the first and most original true talents in the em/folk/alternative genres that has received that huge of success. The music of Smith is phenomenal, the beauty, sentimental depth is something we find in many musicians today. The truth of emotional music with the basic simple tools of acoustic strings and a piano is the truest we will get inside the musical genius of Elliot Smith.

The Art of Anton Corbijn or The Master of Visual Images in Music

Photography and music are art forms that in many ways come hand in hand. For one certain person, this has been his living. Through music videos, covert arts and exhibitions Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn has explored a new genre of art. The art of music. Through his fantastic eyes he has captured some of the most classic covers of modern music history. His alternative, dark toned cinematography has been the foundation for some of the most artistic music videos.

Two years ago, Anton Corbijn released his first directed full feature film ‘Control’ which was a story of the Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis and his tragically short life. When we take a close look at Corbijn’s portfolio we find classic music videos like Metallica’s ‘Hero Of The Day’ (1996), U2’s ‘One’ (1992), Nirvana’s ‘Heart Shaped Box’ (1993) and numerous of Depeche Mode videos and Joy Division's mythical ‘Atmosphere’ (1988).

As U2 is releasing ‘No Line on The Horizon’ and as I wrote my ‘Captain Beefheart Tribute’, I find it rather interesting that the man behind the first mentioned band’s most classical album is this artist and that Beefheart’s last musical work was shot and captured by the vision of Cobijn.

The raw photo of U2's "Joshua Tree' Art Cover. (1987)

At the year 1987, Anton Corbijn captured the fantastic, incredible cold image of the Joshua Tree for the album ‘Joshua Tree’. The image is one of Corbijn's most recognized works and he has later on worked with artists like Nick Cave, Dave Gahan and the legendary San Diego folk/alternative Tom Waits.

Corbijn's Ian Curtis-film 'Control' (2007).

What to be acknowledged through Cobijn is his fantastic vision and view in the participation with some of the most artistic pieces added outside the music, in the music history. Corbijn’s edge is a brilliance to his business and with his latest work Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida’ music video Corbijn show’s hope to the art of music videos which has become and has been for a very long time an important medium in the art of music.

The raw photo of The Killers 'Sam's Town' (left) and legend Tom Waits (right)

All pictures are taken by Anton Corbijn and was found on his website. For more information on Anton Corbijn visit his website: antoncobijn.co.uk

Captain Beefheart, A Magical Band and The Story of A Revolutionary Man

This past week Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’s first record ‘Safe As Milk’ was re-released. Who was this man? Captain Beefheart and what was his story because few of us might never have heard about the man influenced greats like Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, The Clash, Nick Cave and on long distances Rock & Roll icon Bruce Springsteen. We ask ourselves, when we think of the 60’s and 70’s, why do we never hear of Captain Beefheart. Why is he not one of greats. Because he choose not to be and that’s what signified his music to change the face of the music industry for eternity and so forth.

Captain Beefheart also known as Don Van Vliet was born in 1941 and was raised in Glendale, California. He was an artist of his time and rumors claim that he started sculpting at the age of 6. At the age of 13, Don Vliet was offered a full art scholarship to an Art School in Europe but declined and had his parents move with him to the Mojave desert in order to find a better environment for inspiration.

Frank Zappa was one of Vliet’s older friends and at this time Vliet formed a band called The Magic Band. In a tribute to his greatest idols, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Howlin’ Wolf he named himself Captain Beefheart. Vliet’s Beefheart went from pursuing art into shaping that element in music through inspiration the old past masters of blues.
Beefheart had tremendous blues voice and his band soon became local heroes and as former guitarist of the band Doug Moon states: ‘Don could capture the sound of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters and recreate, not copy it. But recreate it to his own’. At this time the American Labels looked for a way to respond to the 'British Invasion' and they all saw potential in Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, but no one could recreate Mick Jagger in Don Vliet. Instead the band headed into a darker form of Desert Blues/Rock that later became the influences of what the impact of Homme’s, 'The Dessert Sessions' and Stoner Rock genre came to be.

The Band moved to Los Angeles and recorded their first full length album. The Legendary ‘Safe As Milk’ and on this production famous blues guitarist Ry Cooder had replaced Doug Moon. At this time the band headed even darker into influences and Cooder describes Vliet’s vision:
‘His vision was to take the raw blues elements of John Lee Hooker and Howlin Wolf’ and tear it down so raw that you just would have a sound. Just a grunt maybe and you would add something abstract. You would add the John Coltrane, crazy time signature free Jazz on a Coleman thing and then Hybridize it together, which was a great idea’.

At this time the record company had a large idea around Captain Beefheart and as a proof of their capability, the band was about to get introduced on the Monterey Pop Festival. A Festival that had helped Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding and Janis Joplin among others. Vliet, suffered from hard anxiety problems at this time and the concert ended in chaos and the commercial idea around Beefheart and his band was lost for a very long time.

It was at this time that Don Vliet and the Magic Band started to work on a new album. The audience was somewhat people rejected by hippies. The one’s who were to strange and they suited well into the Beefheart phenomenon. Don Vliet and his band was locked into a house for 8 moths rehearsing an album that came to be ‘Trout Mask Replica’ and the members of the band weren’t even able to go to the store to by food. It was a dictatorship in which the dictator or mastermind was Don Vliet’s Captain Beefheart composing an album that was recorded as a live session.

The ‘Trout Mask Replica’ was not just touching the brilliance it was among many musicians and fans in particular the best album ever made at this time. It had the best parts of all the genres Vliet tried to reach within; Blues, Rock and Jazz and the experiment did not stop with ‘Trout Mask Replica’ it continued with the controversial album called ‘Lick My Decals Off Baby’ which contained a tv-spot in an extreme artistic way that was refused by audiences. It was even asked to be taken off the air.
After ‘Lick My Decals Off Baby’, Captain Beefheart left the dessert and moved to Santa Cruz in California and this was the period where Don Vliet realized he did not make well profits from being a musician. People and the record labels never really counted on The Captain Beefheart albums to sell well, but they all loved it’s concept. In this transformation to an easier form of blues.

It was also at this time that Vliet started to market himself as a serious artist and establish himself as a painter through several exhibitions. He also declared a love for the Black/White Television medium and his art could be seen through his Cover Art. Captain Beefheart had reached it’s highest commercial break in the history of the band but many fans was dissapointed in Vliet’s later compositions.

After a long term of legal argues Captain Beefheart returned to the studio with a new version of younger musicians in his Magic Band and recorded the three albums that brought the brilliance back to Vliet’s vision. The three albums ‘The Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)’, ‘Doc At The Radar Station’ and ‘Ice Cream for Crow’ was the last pieces we got see with Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. It was after this commercial and critic success that Beefheart decided to transform himself into focusing more onto his art in order to be recognized as an artistic painter rather than a musician that paints.
Vliet is today a well recognized painter who has pursued great art and is well known in the art societies. It is also clear that Vliet suffers from some form of illness that has made him wheel cheer bound. Still Vliet’s music in form of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band lives on and has clearly been one of the greatest inspirations in experimental Jazz, Rock and most of all blues that has shaped many artists such as the alternative genres of Rock & Roll as it took it’s shape into become a mix of The Rhythm and Blues in the Rolling Stones as to the Stone Rock Universe of Josh Homme and later influenced Grunge/Rock artist Dave Grohl. As the BBC DJ, John Peel stated: "If there has ever been such a thing as a genius in the history of popular music, it's Beefheart…I heard echoes of his music in some of the records I listened to last week and I'll hear more echoes in records that I listen to this week."

Don Van Vliet or Captain Beefheart was driven by his musical vision. On a borderline between genius and imbalanced he composed together a new genre of Blues/Rock/Jazz that came to be the underground of Psychedelic Rock in 1960’s. He’s music is a source for the experimental greatness we all witness today and that’s why he’s worth his genius and the recognition above all.

Sources for this article comes from: ‘The Artist Formely Known As Captain Beefheart’ BBC Television Documentary from 1994, England, ‘Captain Beefheart Biography: Rolling Stone Encyclopedia Of Rock & Roll’ (Simon & Schuster, 2001) and Allmusic.com: Captain Beefheart: Biography.

Thåström; A Brief Summary of A Great Musician, Internationally Infamous

In every culture there is different symbols in music, film, art that has a great recognition and status in their culture but haven’t received great recognition abroad or in the mass media of the world’s parts in their industries. One of these people that I have decided to present to you is one of the most influential and greatest musicians in the Swedish music history. The composer, guitarist and vocalist Joakim Thåström is one of those musicians that has been a part of major musical developments in Sweden and with bands like ‘Ebba Grön’, ‘Imperiet’ and ‘Peace, Love and Pitbulls’.

Thåström protesting at the Berlin Wall.

Joakim Thåström was born in 1957 in one of the suburbs called Högdalen outside and grown together with the Swedish capital Stockholm. In his early teenage years Thåström started a band called Helt Sonika and with one member of Helt Sonika he later came to create the most famous Swedish punk band of all time, Ebba Grön. The name was taken from a Swedish police code in the try to arrest a suspected kidnapper during the 1970’s and the this was kind of the start trigger for a new political movement i Sweden. The music that Ebba Grön created had strong political atmosphere it and with songs like ‘Staten och Kapitalet’,’800 Grader’, ‘Die Mauer’ and ‘Mental Istid’ they approached a very political appeal influenced by the Swedish ‘Nationalteatern’.

Ebba Grön during one of their local concerts.

As the punk came to its end and ‘so-called’ death, Thåström and the band members of Ebba Grön created The Space Imperium (a.k.a Rymdimperiet) who later changed their name to The Imperium (a.k.a Imperiet). Thåström was a party animal and was one of few who appealed to the rock’ n roll life style and through his new band they approached somewhat a rock’ n roll appeal. Imperiet didn’t last to long and the band shattered in 1983 as Thåström approached for a solo career. Imperiet had tried to create somewhat a synth/rock style that was in line with the 80’s but as he started his solo project Thåström experimented with the harder and rougher parts of his music. He released a rough, hard rock n’ roll act with his album ‘Xplodera mig 2000’ (a.k.a ‘Xplode me 2000’).

Thåström’s solo career didn’t last long, shortly after he moved to the Netherlands in order to explore new fields and parts of music and experiment with genres. The project lead to Thåström’s biggest international success Peace,Love and Pitbulls. They reached huge fame through a concert in at one of the main music festivals in Sweden, Hultsfredfestivalen in 1991. Peace, Love and Pitbulls was a very inspirational source for many upcoming artists and the most famous of these upcoming artists was Marilyn Manson who claimed that Peace, Love and Pitbulls was one of his main influences.

Thåström's Peace, Love & Pitbulls was an influential source to his music.

In 1997 the band went separate ways and this was what came to lead to one of the greatest moves in Thåström’s career as he went back to Sweden to sing in Swedish. This was a calmer and more poetic Thåström and after ‘Det är ni som är konstiga och jag som är normal’ and a live record ‘ Thåström pa Roda Kvarn’ he released a critic success with his ‘Skebokvarnsvägen 209’.  With this album released in 2005, Thåström was renewed in a sense. The calm poetic, deep, well produced singer/songwriter alternative rock was an approach which Thåström reached high recognition at new audiences and younger fans.

Thåström performing today.

In 2007, Thåström formed a new composition of band members in Sällskapet with their big hit ‘Nordlich’ but still keeps his solo career alive with an upcoming album release with ‘Kärlek För Dom’ Thåström becomes always present and a challenger of and renewal symbol of the Swedish music industry. Thåström is one of the main inspirational sources to the young musicians growing up in Sweden with hope to approach in punk and rock and his past creations and composes rely on the top as great achievements in Swedish music history as one of the main characters in the modern Swedish music industry. He has become a necessary symbol for the political, experimental and alternative rock star of modern music time and is the only true symbol for his time, unfortunately, internationally infamous.

Discography with Ebba Grön; ‘We’re Only in it For the Drugs’ (1979), Kärlek och Uppror (1981), Ebba Grön (1982), Ebba Grön 1978-1982 (1987). Imperiet; ‘Rasera’ (1984), ‘Imperiet’ (1984), ‘Blå Himlen Blues’, ‘2:a Augusti 1985’ (1985), ‘Synd’ (1986), ‘Imperiet’ (1988), ‘Tiggarens Tal’ (1988), Studio/Live (1988), ‘Kickar’ (1990). Peace, Love and Pitbulls; ‘Peace, Love & Pitbulls’ (1992), ‘Red Sonic Underwear’ (1994), ‘3’ (1997). Thåström; ‘ Thåström’ (1989), ‘Xplodera Mig’ (1991), Singoalla (1998), ‘Det är ni som e dom konstiga det är jag som e normal’ (1999), ‘Mannen Som Blev En Gris’ (2002), ‘Skebokvarnsvägen 209’ (2005) and with Sällskapet; ‘ Sällskapet’ (2007) and Thåström’s upcoming album ‘Kärlek För Dom’ (2009).

Review on  ‘Kärlek För Dom’ (Eng. Love For Those) will be posted in time with his Swedish release on March 13.