Blowin’ Free
The theme of our program tonight is how fucking great it is to be alive! And if you don’t believe life is a gift, that should be lived to the fullest, if you don’t dream of driving with the top down, blasting the radio, pounding your fist on the dashboard, if you haven’t seen God, if your genitals have not tingled at a concert, I WANT YOU TO STOP READING RIGHT NOW!
That’s right. Shut down your computer, turn off that BlackBerry, I don’t want to bring you right down, I don’t want to bum you out. We’re surfing the astral plane, we’re enjoying ourselves, and we don’t want your downer energy. Go utilize apps, go play video games. Just please stop reading, this is going to bum you out too much.
Clive Davis would say Wishbone Ash can’t sing, that the song is too long. Jimmy Iovine would say they’re not good-looking enough, that there’s no way to tie in with the Fortune 500. And a band this good wouldn’t make a deal with a major label today anyway, they wouldn’t give up 360 degrees of revenue, wouldn’t sell their souls, they’d want to be free, on stage, where they belong!
I never even HEARD this song until today! Sitting at the light, waiting to turn from Sunset onto Barrington. When I heard the live rendition done at XM. Which is not the take I’m going to point you to here, that one had better vocals, but this ancient one just WAILS!
Wanna know what it was like in the seventies? WATCH THIS CLIP! Catch the audience clapping, grooving, moving to the music. Others standing in sheer admiration…how do they DO this?
We know how Britney did it. On sheer desire. Flashing her lashes for aged men. But that didn’t used to be the recipe we admired. We liked acts that truly cooked. Who assembled the ingredients and every night attempted to make that cake RISE!
Watch this clip. Doesn’t it make you want to raise your arms in exultation like the dude in the black shirt at the end? Doesn’t it make you want to grab your wallet, put on your jacket and go to the gig?
You can’t get this feeling anywhere else. Only music can light such a spark inside, transport you three fifths of a mile in ten seconds.
Hang in there, through the intro ad, through the first few notes, until the guitars lock in and start to WAIL!
In the old days, music was sealed up, you could visit it in the store, but it was hard to hear. But via the miracle of the Internet, you can hear Wishbone Ash’s "Blowin’ Free" right now! TURN IT UP!
