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Well, I suppose Manson has the attitude, if that's what counts. Last time I saw him the gig was held up for half an hour just because he'd forgotten his dodgy contact lens and had to send a courier to his hotel to retrieve it. Some might say that a man who makes a packed Brixton Academy wait that long for something they won't even be able to see is a star. Others may say he's total tosser...
Are you looking for "Rock Stars" or will just "Cool" work?
Cool:
Brian Setzer
Mike Ness
Ginger (most of the time)
Tyla
Spike
Or are you looking for people on MTV? The "Rock Star" thing will be back soon...just wait.
The media promotes what it wants and ignores what doesn't fit into its little box of bohemianism. What it wants is faux-earnestness combined with neo-preppy arrogant entitlement such as in "punk." Since that doesn't allow room for the larger than life aspects of things, then they are pushed aside, the way real glam was pushed aside in the early 1990s to promote grunge.
Anyway, look elsewhere for things such as that.
My new sig ROCKS!!!! [img]wink.gif[/img]
Holy Crap Carl!....I would shit if I ran into Robin Zander in a mall. Cheap Trick as you know is one of my all time favs and I've never met Zander or any other members of the band. That "Would" be a big deal to me. See there is the old familiarity thing which makes it no big deal. Robin Zander and any other member of Cheap Trick are legends in my book. Zander is very much a rockstar from interviews I've seen him in. He has that very self assured air about him.
I guess though it's the same thing as when back in the late 80's it was no big deal to see Crue, Poison, Roth, The Cult, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Black n' Blue etc, in the many Peeler bars of Vancouver on any given night, when they were recording their albums here. It becomes no big deal and you get used to it.
<font size="4" face="Arial">Quote:
Originally posted by Carl I.:
Ummm, then they exactly the OPPOSITE of what being a "Rockstar" is, and you even say it in your own statement. The fact that I can bump into Robin Zander when I go shopping at Woodman's (which is where I went last night...and which is in his hometown of Rockford...which is 1/2 hour from my house and where I do all my shopping) makes him NOT a Rockstar. Hell, my sister knows his daughter.
There will be a ROCKSTAR again, it's just that there has been nobody to take the roll since DLR. Actually, had Andrew Wood not died, he would have been it.[/QB]
i got to hang out with Cheap Trick one night almost 10 years ago i would say. They played this club here that my friend used to run. they were all really nice guys but like Carl stated, not very rockstarish, not that that?s a bad thing. about the most rockstarish thing about them was the guitarist Rick Nielsen constantly complaining 'bout, "we're Cheap Trick! we played Budokan for christ sake and now we have to play Tink's?" (i.e. Tink's is/was a glorified bar, held approx 900 people, 2 foot by 2 foot post in the middle of the stage, terrible view points but they got EVERYONE to play there) i said to Mr. Nielsen, "hey, life is tough isn't it? last night i was at a dorm party at Marywood U (local girls college) and tonight i'm drinking with you. who got the worst deal?"
actually i didn't say anything. it was Cheap Trick damnit, i wasn't going to talk back.
side note, they were not that good live but i don't think they were too into it. still love em though, great band. they are playing around here again in march.
as for who is a rockstar, it begins and ends with Diamond Dave, still. just ask him, he'll tell ya'!
Sandy, CT are from Rockford and they never moved away. The whole city pretty much treats them as if they were still a small band, and that is mainly due to the fact that they still play out all the time. It used to be (even during their biggest days) that if you were from the Chicago/Rockford area, and you ever PAID to see CT, you were an idiot. You could get free vouchers to their shows everywhere. They never charged when in the area, if you knew how to get the freebies, which consisted of walking into a County Seat clothing store (usually) and saying "can I get Cheap Trick tickets" and the person behind the counter would roll their eyes and say "yeah, take one, they're on the counter there".
To this day, they play little bars all around Rockford. I still haven't gone to track them down yet, as it is never really announced. They just play. I should though. I grew up in the area, and have only seen them once. Granted, it was my first concert and it was for the "Next Position" album. It was just always one of those things where they played soooo often, you eventually just lost the idea of going to see them.
It's really sad there are no new ones though. All we have are the ones from days gone past.
Maybe the fact that Cheap Trick haven't followed the cliched 'rock star' lifestyle accounts for the fact that they're all still alive - and still playing! Robin Zander still has the most incredible voice too. Amazed that you've only seen them once, Carl!
It's a fact I am NOT proud of, and one that I don't mention to people. Usually when asked if I have seen them, I make it sound better than it is by saying "duh...they were my first concert when I was 12!"
Well, just to refer to another thread, there was gonna be Dave Lepard from Crashdiet, but obviously that didn't work out... [img]frown.gif[/img]
You'd think we'd have these issues worked out by now, but for some reason we don't. People do want Rawk Stars, but they want to get good music from them; I'm sort of surprised that people put up for so long with so much substandard music in the '80s (or maybe I've been reading all the hip mags for too long), but I know why they did. Too bad--a real lost opportunity there, and a good lesson in why you need to be making good music for the long term, not just cashing in. If you're gonna be a "tribal spokesman", so to speak, you'd better make your tribe look good, and too many people who've aspired to Rawk Star status didn't understand that.
(The folky U.K. '70s rock band the Strawbs had a manager who actually encouraged the band to keep interaction with their fans to a minimum so as to Preserve The Mystique. I wonder how many bands got advice like that?)