I wonder whether politicians who think a liberal art education is a waste of time, or that art needn’t be taught in school ever thought of this… that sooooo many of the musicians they listen to went to art school. Here is a partial list of musicians that went to art school in England:
Ray Davies
Eric Clapton
Ron Wood
Keith Richards
Jeff Beck
John Lennon
Farrokh Bulsara aka Freddie Mercury
Christine McVie
Ian Dury
Pete Townshend
Joe Strummer
Cat Stevens
Bryan Ferry
Brian Eno
David Bowie
Interesting to note that Bowie attended the Bromley Technical High School, where he studied art under the instruction of Owen Frampton, father of guitarist Peter Frampton.
We both arrived in Boston in 1979 to play guitar. A year or two later I met Eric Schermerhorn (wikiwand – LINK & Eric’s website – LINK) who played guitar in the band Ooh-Ah-Ah!, which featured Cinde Lager on vocals and Japanese bass player Akio Akashi. My band was called Red and, like Ooh-Ah-Ah!, we used a drum machine. They had a Roland TR-808, which Akashi had brought from Japan, and we used an Oberheim DX.
I left Boston in 1986. That same year Eric was in a new band called East of Eden. We weren’t in touch until sometime in 1995. I don ‘t remember how we reconnected, but suddenly we started talking on the phone… He was living in New York City, had toured with David Bowie and Iggy Pop and many others. I invited him to my place in Santa Fe and we decided to record some music. I remember Eric told me he had to use a radio to play white noise so he could sleep because Santa Fe was too quiet compared to the city.
Here is a recording from 1995 with Eric and me playing guitars, Jon Gagan on bass guitar and keyboards, and the late Carl Coletti on drums:
There is a whole unreleased album of music we recorded that year… we called the project Lava. I am going to give the original multitrack recordings a listen today… perhaps I should do some new mixes!
Eric also played an electric guitar solo on Butterfly & Juniper, on the album Opium:
And here Eric plays steel string acoustic and slide guitar on Little Wing:
Eric moved to California in 2001 and worked with P!nk, Christina Aguilera, and Seal. I remember Stephen Duros playing the DVD of Seal Live in Paris on our tour bus one night. For me Eric’s guitar playing was the best part of the performance.
Years passed and then we had several phone conversations starting in 2020. I was thinking about making a big change, perhaps even moving away from Santa Fe, and listened to Eric talk about Portugal and Lisbon in particular. He had performed in the country several times, and although touring provides only snapshots of life, he liked the country and the people. I was intrigued and in December 2021 I visited Portugal for the first time. Three months later I had an apartment in Lisbon.
Of course I knew about the fires in the L.A. area but then I got a call from Eric. His house was outside the fire zone but it burned down. Here are photos from before and after:
More than 50 guitars, old microphones like the Neumann U67 and many other, hard drives, multi-track tapes… all gone. Nothing can bring back some of the unique guitars and mics. I got rid of a lot of stuff before I left Santa Fe… but I did it voluntarily. This is a radical forced purge. I can’t imagine what that’s like.
There is a fundraiser for Eric and his family – LINK
The word Buddhism was only coined by Europeans in the last few hundred years. For two millennia Buddhists were simply known as people who followed the Dharma. The word Dharma, like many Sanskrit words, has a wide range of meanings and can’t be translated into a single English word. However, a general description that works well enough for this purpose is path. It’s a path or prescription that can be followed.
This meaning led to an interesting story when the Dharma arrived in China, because Tao means The Way. Some Taoists believed a story (early conspiracy theory!?) that claimed Laozi traveled east after writing the Tao Te Ching and taught a young man named Siddhartha about the Tao, which later came to be called the Dharma. It was suggested that the Dharma was built on the Tao or, to take the image of a path or road further, that the Dharma connected to the Tao. This is not at all likely but, like all good conspiracy theories, remotely possible. Siddhartha Gautama is said to have been born between 563 and 480 BCE and Laozi was born sometime between the 4th and 6th century BCE.
Something else happened, however… Dharma met Tao in China and became Chan and then Zen. Instead of extending the path into India, a new path was forged.
Enjoy the apparently mostly true story of Su Kong Tai Djin I came across yesterday:
Tai Djin was born in China in 1849. He was born unique, afflicted with hypertrichosis. Unlike Jo-Jo, who would be born a few decades later, Tai Djin was born into a highly superstitious family. As A result they saw his affliction as the work of demons and he was left in the forest to die.
A Shaolin monk traveling through the forest discovered the child and took him back to the Fukien Shaolin Temple. There Tai Djin was raised by the monks.
My friend, and product manager at Epic Records, Al Masocco, had a birthday recently and I called him to wish him a happy birthday. He will be inducted into the Niagara Falls Music Hall of Fame on 15. November. Niagara Falls this year and surely Cleveland next. Congrats Al.
Mr. Masocco’s 28-plus years in the music/marketing world at CBS/Sony Music have given him a unique opportunity and the rare creative experience of working on strategies for artists such as The Rolling Stones, The Clash, Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, Tammy Wynette, Bruce Springsteen, Korn, Ottmar Liebert, Oasis and festival and tour compilations such as Woodstock 99 and The Family Values releases to name a few.
Over the last five years with The Firm, Mr. Masocco has been given the opportunity to explore and broaden his marketing and promotional playing field through working on development strategies for Enrique Iglesias, Limp Bizkit, Dixie Chicks, Michelle Branch, Linkin Park, Jennifer Lopez, Audioslave, Puddle of Mudd, Kelly Clarkson, Snoop Dogg, Dean Martin and The Doors estates, etc.
While there has been evidence of women hunting, these historical discoveries have been treated more as the exception than the rule. But it seems women not only actively hunted in most societies, but their involvement in that role among the society was on par with their male counterparts.
Researchers have analyzed data dating back 100 years on 63 different and diverse foraging societies around the world and found that in 50 of the groups (79%), women were active hunters regardless of whether they were mothers or even grandmothers.
The study out of Seattle Pacific University looked at 19 North American, 15 Australian, 12 African, six South American, six Oceanic and five Asian societies and found that recorded data backs archeological discoveries from the Holocene that women from diverse cultures participated in hunting.