A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2011 (Part 17)

1989. What a fucked up year that was. A bunch of metal (mostly glam/hair) acts headed to Moscow to play a giant concert. It was very dull. So much else was going on. The hair metal bands were in the process of being usurped by the super sleazy Guns N Roses, and Guns N Roses had yet to bloat into everything they originally hated. Primus was making everything weird. REM was growing into the biggest damn band in America after years of low-level obscurity.


GUNS N ROSES - Patience

PRIMUS - To Defy The Laws Of Tradition

REM - These Days

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2011 (Part 16)

1988. By this time the idea of "college rock" had morphed into "post-modern rock" then into "alternative rock" and so on and so forth as whatever fad catch-all name for non-mainstream music came into vogue. All sorts of crazy music was erupting into people's ears. Operation Ivy was already doing it's hardcore ska-punk thing in the Bay Area. The Pixies were making an eerie music, skeletal yet anthemic. Fugazi had begun to morph hardcore punk. The Red Hot Chili Peppers funked out with their cocks out. (check the dick socks in the clip) Dinosaur Jr brought the aural bliss of their "ear-bleeding country." Rock music history should view 1988 as 19-eightygreat.


Operation Ivy - Knowledge

The Pixies - Where Is My Mind?


Fugazi - Waiting Room

The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Fire

Dinosaur Jr - Kracked

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2011 (Part 15)

1987. It was the perfect time for The Cure to come fix everything damnit. The Pet Shop Boys were pushing their wry brand of anti-rock dance music. -FUPPETS- House Band Sonic Youth were about to release their masterpiece, DAYDREAM NATION. While the goth guys tried to ape Robert Smith, the goth girls tried their hardest to mimic Siouxsie Sioux. Meanwhile, on the west coast of the USA, a fermenting pot of insanity and rock called Jane's Addiction were recording their first LP, a live album.


THE CURE - Hot, Hot, Hot

THE PET SHOP BOYS - It's A Sin

SONIC YOUTH - Silver Rocket

SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES - Candyman

JANE'S ADDICTION - Trip Away

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2011 (Part 14)

1986. Another year in the trudge we call life. What is middle school but institutionalized mutual torture? If it was not for music, many would have gone plain INSANE. Augustus Pablo was using a child's toy to create outstandingly bad-ass reggae music. Guns N Roses had yet to explode but were blowing brains in the LA scene. Ozzy was on heavy rotation for certain. Depeche Mode started getting dark and morbid in the best way. Killing Joke just got it on.


AUGUSTUS PABLO - Java

GUNS N' ROSES - Rocket Queen

OZZY OSBOURNE - Bark At The Moon

DEPECHE MODE - Black Celebration

KILLING JOKE - Chessboards

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2011 (part 13)

1985. One year past George Orwell's expiration date. It was a strange time. The USA was being ruled by a puppet government, using the ever-progressing deterioration of Ronald Reagan due to Alzheimer's Disease to achieve their own ends of avarice and mass-brainwashing. It was an ugly, ugly time for the mainstream arts, as greedhead assholes cut arts budgets and school budgets. It was a good time to be rich and white and powerful. It was a terrible time for anyone else. The truly creative felt this and unleashed their creations. The music was the medicine, or at least the soporific, that we all needed. PRINCE was at his manic funky pinnacle, and anything he touched was gold, but he was offering his death for your happiness. METALLICA brought us their ode to loneliness, death, and oblivion, allowing the metal-heads to "feel it." TIL TUESDAY sang about the oppression of an abusive relationship. THE CULT brought back the bombast to rock and roll, reminding us that pure raw sexlove can provide shelter from the world's shit, if only for a time. NEIL YOUNG sang about heroin's beauty and toll at a concert to raise money for Ethiopian starvation relief efforts. THE SMITHS sang about "illicit" love in the face of violence and hate. -FUPPETS- remembers it as a weird time.

PRINCE - I Would Die For You

METALLICA - Fade To Black

TIL TUESDAY - Voices Carry

THE CULT - She Sells Sanctuary

NEIL YOUNG - The Needle & The Damage Done

THE SMITHS - Hand In Glove

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2011 (Part 12)

1984. Did Orwell get it right and no one noticed?

GBH asked for fire. The God of Thunder became a War Machine. RUN DMC went off on sucka MC's. SLAYER shared their dark magic. Prince took us to erotic city.


GBH - Give Me Fire

KISS - War Machine

RUN DMC - Sucka MC's

SLAYER - Black Magic

PRINCE - Erotic City

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2011 (Part 11)

1983. A decade into existence. The musical landscape is forever changing. Sounds disappear and sounds reappear, often in new strange guises. A young group in the UK was beginning their path to indie rock immortality, for THE SMITHS are truly immortal. A tiny Brit with a voice like Odin himself, RONNIE JAMES DIO penned an anthem to loneliness that actually rocked harder than anything he had done with Black Sabbath. Frank Zappa's band hooks up with a blonde from the future and helps MISSING PERSONS craft a sound that would be stolen by hordes of New Wave wanna-be bands. (Imagine if Gwen Stefani could actually sing and had original ideas). REM fired the opening salvo in their subtle yet passionate assault on the ears of the world. Other bands had their own way to do things, and POISON IDEA influenced many that would come afterwards. Meanwhile, -FUPPETS- House Band, SONIC YOUTH, was showing us how the city is a natural scape, and doing so with the severe chaos that only they are capable of.


THE SMITHS - Accept Yourself

RONNIE JAMES DIO - Rainbow In The Dark

MISSING PERSONS - Words

REM - Carnival of Sorts

POISON IDEA - Marked For Life

SONIC YOUTH - Making The Nature Scene

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2011 (Part 10)

1982. More and more homes around the USA were getting cable television, and with it MTV. At that time MTV was as white-bread as any other media outlet, barely showing any Hispanic or African-American bands. This allowed what was and still is a fringe music, Heavy Metal, to take over the MTV airwaves. Metal bands provided visually stimulating, although oftentimes moronic, videos of their bombastic songs. Iron Maiden, one of the giants of double-barrel guitar twaddle were tearing it up with their second singer, Bruce Dickinson. Judas Priest was blasting their loud rock to the world with an all-time classic. Ozzy Osborne had left Black Sabbath and hooked up with a tiny dynamo called Randy Rhoads who rocked but died too soon. Meanwhile, funk-master supreme Rick James was doing his thing at the height of his funky powers.


IRON MAIDEN - Run To The Hills

JUDAS PRIEST - Breaking The Law

OZZY OSBORNE - Flying High Again

RICK JAMES - Mary Jane

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2010 (part 9)

1981. The post-punk era was in full swing. Bands were just singing crazy crap. It was a wonderful time. Siouxsie & The Banshees were wailing their peculiarly awesome insanity. New Order was crafting a whole new existence after Joy Division. At the same time the titans of prog RUSH were at their florid technical peak, merging intricacy with melody as few could do. At the other end of the sonic spectrum the Circle Jerks were letting it all hang out in primal fashion.


SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES - SpellBound

NEW ORDER - Everything's Gone Green

RUSH - Red Barchetta

CIRCLE JERKS - Red Tape/ Back Up Against The Wall/ I just Want Some Skank/ Beverly Hills/ Wasted

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2010 (Part 8)

1980. By now punk was dead, and bands started to use the new rock template to create new sounds, all of which would later be diluted and relegated to a few specific sub-sets of rock such as post-modern, new romantics, alternative, indie, goth, hardcore, post-modern, new wave, etc. Fuck categories. They are only good as suggestions, as vague ideas about what to expect from a band, but they DO NOT DEFINE THE MUSIC DAMNIT!
DEVO was warping minds and no one knew what to do with them. That is how -FUPPETS- loves it. FEAR was still bringing the fucking rage and honest hostility to the West Coast. No one ever did it better. GANG OF FOUR was post-punkin' their way out of England. Also out of the UK, The SPECIALS continued mixing punk and ska and whatever else their ears picked up.
Meanwhile, back in Texas, ZZ TOP continued their stomp-boogie accross the face of the Earth.


DEVO - Gates Of Steel

FEAR - I Don't Care About You/Beef Bologna

GANG OF FOUR - Damaged Goods

THE SPECIALS - Gangsters

ZZ TOP - Just Got Paid

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2010 (Part 7)

1979. Shit was getting weird. The west coast started spitting out bands as ugly and harsh as anything to come out of NYC or London, and The Dead Kennedys were blowing minds and scaring The Man in SoCal. Dire Straits had a massive hit with a song they first recorded as part of a 5-song demo soon after forming. The Cure released their first album, Three Imaginary Boys, starting a thirteen album, thirty year journey. Bob Marley was on his last large tour before cancer took his life at age 36.


DEAD KENNEDYS - California Über Alles

DIRE STRAITS - Sultans of Swing

THE CURE - Three Imaginary Boys/Killing An Arab

BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS - Positive Vibration

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2010 (part 6)

1978. Shit was going CRAZY in 1978. Strange serial killers roamed the land in society's ugly backlash to the fairy-tale 60's. Talking Heads captured it perfectly with their upbeat paranoiac fantasies. Across the Atlantic, Joy Division was beginning their assault on the minds of the world with their first televised appearance. Back in the bowels of NYC, Glenn Branca was shaking shit up skronkilatin' on the guitar, feeding heads who would go on to explode noise rock. At their titanic peak, the Old Ones favorite band, Black Sabbath, was scaring the world.

"Fear and Chaos are the greatest fuel for Art" ~ -FUPPETS-

*(Down South, they just decided to get full-on weird. Embedding is not available for this but you have to check it out. The B-52's performing Rock Lobster live in Atlanta just months before the release of their first album. )

TALKING HEADS - Psycho Killer

JOY DIVISION - Shadowplay

GLENN BRANCA - live solo

BLACK SABBATH - Electric Funeral

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2010 (part 5)

The year is 1977. The psychedelic heyday of 60's rock has come and gone and a clean, polished, civilized type of adult contemporary rock starts to push across the airwaves. Music for comfortable 30-somethings is never what propels the rock forward. It took a bunch of dead-end street bums to bring the fervor, the rage, the joy of rock back to the kids. The older, jaded artsy types created a new way to make music. They were sick of "rock n roll." They were sick of people appropriating the blues world. In Australia, bands like the Saints and Radio Birdman spread the chaos. In NYC, Talking Heads had released their first LP and sought to inject humor and intelligence into their music.

The DEAD BOYS - Live at CBGB

SUICIDE - Ghost Rider

The Saints - Live at Paddington Hall

TALKING HEADS - Don't Worry About The Government

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2010 (part 4)

1976. It was the 200th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence. It was a perfect time to shake everything up. The stagnation was rampant. The kids were fed up. Like Johnny Rotten and his Sex Pistols, they were pissed and saw no reason for optimism. It is always a good thing to be reminded that in art of any kind there are indeed NO RULES. The Patti Smith Group, although a bit older and wiser, felt this way too, and wanted to explode poetry and music in new ways. If this all seems pretentious, and what art is not, there were some fellas from Australia crafting a true rock monolith which grows until this day, and is known as AC/DC. Thank the music gods for that, since 1976 was awash in sappy, ludicrous, singer-songwriter CRAP.


THE SEX PISTOLS - Anarchy In The UK

PATTI SMITH GROUP - Horses

AC/DC - TNT

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2010 (part 3)

1975 is where the third stop on our sonic journey finds us. A strange year which helped seed so much of what came to follow. The Ramones were just a few steps removed from living on the street. Herbie Hancock and his Headhunters decided to fully embrace the funk, the soul, the roots and got Jazz funky again. KISS had begun their assault on decency and good taste and still had the edge a real rock band needs. -FUPPETS- thinks it must have been some good times.


RAMONES - Loudmouth

HERBIE HANCOCK - Chameleon

KISS - Strutter

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2010 (part 2)

The second year of our collective sonic journey. -FUPPETS- brings you choice cuts from that most unruly year, 1974. The funk was still strong. Sabbath still roamed the Earth with it's original 4-headed monstrosities. Lou Reed was blond and still waiting for his man.
Join -FUPPETS-.


THE OHIO PLAYERS - Fire

BLACK SABBATH - Children Of The Grave

LOU REED - I'm Waiting For The Man

A LIFETIME OF MUSIC 1973-2010 (part 1)

-FUPPETS- is glad to bring you a new feature which will showcase 37 years of music through the magic of YouTube. Today's installment takes us way back to the year 1973. Ride the mind-way with -FUPPETS- and let's travel back in time together.

PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC - Cosmic Slop (live 1973)

KRAFTWERK - Tanzmusik (live 1973)

MARVIN GAYE - Let's Get It On (live 1973)