Celebrity/musician deaths, music

RIP: Ray Manzarek 1939 – 2013

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Today is a sad day in the world of rock n’ roll music. Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist for the Doors has passed away today. Ray Manzarek was an important member of the Doors because he was the one who started the band himself and wrote most of the Doors song catalog. The formation of the Doors all started when Ray first met Jim Morrison on Venice Beach in California where the two met for the very first time. Jim had written some songs and Ray wanted to hear them so Jim sang them to him. Ray loved them too much that he wanted to form a band with Jim. Then they met drummer Jon Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger later on. Ever since Ray’s first meeting with Jim, the two have been best friends ever since. When the Doors first formed, they didn’t have a bass player and didn’t know where to find one, so Ray used his piano for the bass lines, and he used an organ as well.

The Doors have made a total of 9 successful studio albums and have made tons of radio hits: “Break On Through The Other Side”, “L.A. Woman”, “Riders On the Storm, “People Are Strange”, “The End”, “Moonlight Drive”, etc.

After the Doors broke up in 1973, a few years after Jim Morrison’s death, Ray Manzarek brought the Doors back (minus, Jim Morrison, of course) in 2000 for a special VH1 Storytellers performance where they would have a variety of special guest singers from Ian Astbury, Travis Meeks, Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, and others.

This is a real shame, and this passing devastates me, ’cause I’m a huge fan of the Doors. The Doors happened because of Ray, there wouldn’t be a Jim Morrison without him. I’ve listened to the Doors for years, and they were an inspiration for my own music as well. Ray was a genius of a pianist and keyboardist. He really was proud of the Doors music and loved what he did which is part of why he got my respect. He may have not gotten along well with the surviving members of the Doors over the years, but he was a talented musician no matter what you think of him. I’m sure Ray will be up in heaven with Jim now. There are two members of the Doors left; they are Robby and Jon. This really sucks. The music world lost another great one. Ray Manzarek died of cancer at a hospital in Germany, he was 74 years old.

Kev

music

Stone Temple Pilots announces new frontman but so far, no response from Scott Weiland…

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Today, the Stone Temple Pilots revealed their new singer. Who is it? It’s the singer from Linkin’ Park, Chester Bennington. Hear the new song by STP fronted by Chester in the audio-video below. Yes, the debate of Scott Weiland being fired from STP heats up even more online. I’m reading the comments in facebook on the STP official page, and a lot of fans say that if the other guys want to keep the music going, they should change their band name. Sorry to say but I’m gonna have to side with the fans on this one. I understand that the show needs to go on when terminating or replacing a singer but this is disrespectful to Scott if you think about it. It also disrespects the legacy of Stone Temple Pilots.

I posted a similar discussion in my own facebook page, and got into a heated debate about it with a couple of guys in my facebook. The argument was that the other guy said it would be lame to change their band name ’cause of a singer replacement on a business standpoint. I argued that if they’re gonna replace a singer they need to change the bandname ’cause Stone Temple Pilots was Scott’s baby. Yes, it’s true. Scott Weiland formed STP pretty much himself. Him and one of the Deleo brothers formed, Mighty Joe Young, and STP formed from there.

A lot of people want to mistakenly believe that STP was never really Scott’s band. They want to argue that STP was strictly a band, and they think they can fire, replace members all they want to. Sorry to say, but I’m going to explain that Scott has always been a prominent member of STP from the very beginning. He is pretty much the main guy of the band that you can’t really replace. Scott created the band himself, you can’t be kicked out of something you just created, ya know? Scott was the one who wrote most of STP’s catalog of songs especially the band’s biggest hits like “Plush”, “Wicked Garden”, “Interstate Love Song”, “Big Bang Baby”, etc. All of those were Scott’s tunes. Their first two albums, “Core” and “Purple” were multi-platinum records; they were a huge part of the grunge movement in the 90’s. Scott made all of that happen.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I understand bands want to keep their music going when getting rid of an important member. When they want to do something so risky, there’s a few reasons why changing their band name would be a good idea if they want to get rid of Scott Weiland. I’ll list em: 1) They should change the name out of respect for Scott Weiland ’cause this is making him look bad. 2) They should respect the legacy of STP with it’s four original members, the band had a great career and they shouldn’t ruin it 3) To avoid confusion with the fanbase and the media.

I’m reading all of these comments by the fans in facebook slamming STP for replacing Scott. I hear them, and I agree with the fans calling them out. The fans are just doing it out of love and they just want the band to be more professional about things so they know what they are talking about. Again, don’t get me wrong, their new song with Chester is not that bad, I dig the song actually but don’t release it under STP. LAME!!!!!!!!!!

So far, no response from Scott Weiland about getting replaced by the Linkin Park guy. I have a feeling that Scott is planning a big lawsuit against the other guys in STP. Whether they have the right to fire Scott or whether Scott has the right to stay in the band no matter what happens could be decided in the court room soon.

I do like STP, though. It’s just sad that these guys don’t want to get along. Yes, Scott Weiland has his personal problems but despite that just because you don’t like the guy don’t really mean you have to get rid of him. You can replace other members. Bands do make changes with members over the years, sure, but you can’t get rid of the band’s main guy. It’s just isn’t right on a professional level. I’m still siding with Scott, all the way.

I’m interested in seeing how this feud is gonna end, and I do hope Scott does take them to the court room. I wouldn’t really blame Scott’s so called firing over his drug-problems or personal issues. We don’t know the whole story, so don’t badly judge.

Kev

Politics/war

Cool Video: Senator Rand Paul officially confirms 2016 Presidential run with this teaser video…

2016 is not even here yet. We still have a long ways to go for the next election, and Senator Rand Paul is wasting no time announcing his Presidential Run for 2016.

Ever since Rand Paul’s 13 hour filibuster, I’ve been keeping a close eye on him and I’ve been liking him quite a lot. He’s becoming a favorite politician of mine. If Rand Paul can go as far as getting the nomination in the next election, I think he’s gonna get my vote for sure. He cares for the country, he cares for the Constitution and he seems pretty serious on fixing our broken government. On top of that, any politician who knows what President Obama is all about is okay in my book. I know this is Obama’s last term, he won’t be able to run again anyway but the man needs to be impeached for all of his wrongful actions. I think Rand Paul will be the guy to help get Obama impeached — just watch him. Obama needs to be impeached soon and quick ’cause he doesn’t deserve to serve his full term after all the harm he has caused for America.

With that being said, I think Rand Paul is going to make a great president. I don’t think he will be an evil one like all the other ones from the past. America deserves a good president for a change and Rand Paul will be that guy. I think Rand has what it takes to make America great and powerful again. I’ll see how he handles things in the future and if he keeps up the good work, he’ll get my vote for sure. I stand with Rand.

Kev

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aXaRgww0Pzs

Local music

Why local bands don’t really need to be making MTV/VH1 styled music videos to go somewhere in music…

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I know a lot of local and unsigned bands all across the U.S. and the world love to make professionally made MTV/VH1 styled music videos but you don’t need to. Why? I’m about to explain. I understand that music videos are pretty good marketing tools and they do help get the word out which is why so many bands makes official music videos. They also make them as their way of entertaining their longtime fans. In my humble opinion, music videos aren’t a good form of entertainment.

I always found it pretty silly that musicians have to play dress-up for a music video and then they go film it out in the streets with your instruments in public places. I find it pretty weird that the lead singer of a band have to walk around lip-syncing to a recorded track like if it’s some movie musical. It all bothered me. I never really cared for music videos because it simply takes away the music. I would want to be able to pay attention to the song. I don’t want to feel like watching a movie or a TV show, you know what I mean? Plus, to make a really GOOD music video requires a lot of good acting and tons of professional camera experience. I believe a lot of local and unsigned talented don’t have any of that when making homemade MTV/VH1 like videos.

Some of you may ask. How come the Brock never made a music videos like this? It’s because I never cared to. I don’t think I would ever want an official music video. I would make professional albums on CD, but music videos… no. The closest you’ll ever see me on video are those live performances of mine in youtube at the gigs and me performing at home… that’s as far as a music video you’ll get from me. I mean, you’re not gonna see me in a music video where I walk down the street lip syncing to a recorded track snapping my fingers or swinging my hips back and forth. You’re not gonna see me sitting at a bar with a drink singing a song while a couple dances in the background and people all around me. You’re not gonna see me doing any acting scenes or any of that silly garbage.

You can still get recognized in music by not doing any those kind of videos at all. I don’t see the point, ya know what I mean? On top of that, I wouldn’t feel comfortable seeing myself in those kind of videos. I don’t need that kind of attention ’cause my ego is not that big.

I just want to make the music for you. I don’t think I’ll ever make these kind of videos. Bands mistakenly think you need to have music videos but you don’t need to. It’s all up to you whether you want to make them or not. I don’t mind live concert footage or home performances but music videos, not a chance.  It’s crazy how other bands & artists do them but whatever — they do whatever they want to do, I guess.

Kev

movies

“Flight” starring Denzel Washington… brief review…

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This week, I rented the Robert Zemeckis directed live-action movie, “Flight”, also starring Denzel Washington. It was a Netflix DVD rental and I had to watch it twice before mailing it back to them.

It tells the story about a pilot named, Whip Whitaker, who is about ready to take a flight from Orlando to Atlanta. The only problem is Whip is an alcoholic and a cocaine addict. Before the flight, he got himself high on cocaine and got himself drunk as well. He thought he was good enough to be able to fly the plane. After the take-off as they were flying, the plane starts to malfunction and the plane starts to fly in a strange and unusual way. Whip had no choice but to do an emergency crashing on the plane saving the lives of most passengers on board including himself and the co-pilot. Only a few people were killed and some were injured. When he wakes up in the hospital, Whip was told by a friend from his airline union that a lawyer was going to come in to tell him that he is about to face a bunch of criminal charges ’cause of the plane crash that could land him for life in prison;  they found he was on high on cocaine and intoxicated. After Whip was discharged from the hospital and was able to leave, he becomes a hero after saving the lives of all the passengers on the plane while at the same time he continues to get accused of being high on cocaine and being extremely intoxicated. While out of the hospital and living his life, he falls for a woman who is a heroin addict/alcoholic and together they try to get themselves clean & sober. While Whip tries to get his life back together after the plane incident, he continues to struggle with alcoholism and drug addiction.

Enough of the synopsis. This movie got mixed reviews by people. Some loved it and some hated it. Some just loved the whole movie overall and some just loved it for the Denzel Washington performance alone. I would have to agree that Denzel’s performance in this movie was phenomenal and I think it was his best role since, “Training Day”, but I think the entire movie is great overall. I mean, this is Robert Zemeckis’s first live-action movie since 2000’s “Cast Away”. Zemeckis has been directing animated films for the past several years now. So I’m just so happy that he finally directed a new live-action film for once. Robert Zemeckis still has it too!

Zemeckis has been one of my favorite directors for years, and I’ve been following all of his live-action movies. He really is a unique director and when you watch a movie of his, you immediately know it’s his. He’s a special effects and camera wizard for sure. The man can come up with interesting camera angles and unique shots that no other director could do. He still shows that in, “Flight”. I think the plane scene was pretty thrilling and well done. As I was watching the plane scene, I felt like I was watching the “Back To The Future” movies, a little bit. It may seem pretty silly and weird, but it’s realistic at the same time.

I think the story over all is the most interesting part. A story about life and struggling with addiction; trying to become a better person. That’s what the film is about. The best part of the film is as soon as the movie opens, you’ll see a naked black woman, so that’s a big plus right there! I also loved John Goodman’s performance who played Whip’s friend and drug-dealer in the movie. The whole cast was well-acted by everybody.

I definitely did think this was one of the best films of 2012. I’m gonna want my own copy of this movie on BluRay soon. It is recommended to see. Zemeckis still has it with the live-action movies, and I hope he won’t make us wait so long for his next live-action flick. Definitely check this one out.

Kev

Politics/war

The IRS targeting conservative groups, in my own words…

Since I don’t know much about the IRS, taxes, money, and all that bullshit with politics; I decided to do a little reading about the IRS scandal. Without copying and pasting anything, I’ll explain the IRS scandal in my own words so I can prove to you that I really read through all this and that I know my stuff.

Last Friday, the IRS finally admitted to targeting conservative and tea party groups; they target people who are registered to tax exemption (meaning: to be free from or not subjected to taxation). They go through people who registered with the IRC 501 (c) (4), social welfare kind of stuff. They would go after people with the names: “tea party”, “patriot” or anything that has something to do with conservative kind of stuff. They are exempt from paying federal income tax and that’s the kind of status those groups were hoping to get. Of course, that requires IRS approval and they weren’t allowed to have any kind of political acts in the registration; therefor, the groups were singled out for extra scrutiny (singled out: meaning… select from a group. scrutiny: meaning to watch more closely or watch like a hawk).

Obama responds to this controversy claiming that he is outraged and those responsible will be held accountable. He also said that like all of us; he hasn’t learned about this controversy until  it broke out in the news last Friday.

Not only that this was an illegal move by the IRS, it also takes away our first amendment rights when we should be allowed to lobby in political movements with the IRS. Rand Paul puts it perfectly with the 1st Amendment, read his excellent write-up, here. I’ve been keeping a close eye on Rand Paul since his filibuster at the Senate and I’ve been quite liking him a lot so if he decides to run for President in 2016, he’ll get my vote.

Sure enough, President Obama pretends he doesn’t know anything and pretends to be the innocent victim like he usually is. If you think for one second that he wasn’t involved in the IRS scandal or didn’t know anything about it going on, oh please. He’s the President of the United States. I think he’s a lying son of a bitch like he usually is. Of course, he had to know some stuff about it or was involved a little bit in some way. I mean, isn’t the IRS part of the Presidency and Obama Administration? At least they are the ones who hires the commissioners, the Internal Revenue and all that stuff?

It’s kind of funny how Obama stayed quiet about the IRS and gets right into the action after it was announced all over the news. I mean, how can you trust Obama and Eric Holder after them wiretapping the Associated Press? They are evil and disgusting snakes. ALL OF THEM. That includes the IRS who have been nothing but sleazy bastards for years.

As for the Benghazi stuff, 100’s of e-mails have been released by the White House but that’s still not enough information. Obama is still hiding shit. Those e-mails were sent by some unknown official and who else would it be?

The Obama administration maybe doing a good thing by taking the IRS guys down but this still makes them a bunch of sleazy hypocrites. They respond to the IRS but refuses to respond to Benghazi and still disrespects the 4 victims that were killed there. Also,  The Obama administration shouldn’t go after the IRS, when they just did illegal things themselves by going after the Associated Press phone calls. That’s what makes them hypocrites right there.

This whole government is corrupt and broken altogether. I’m sorry guys but I don’t see how the Obama lovers could continue to defend the guy. This is not good enough to make the supporters turn on him yet? Wow. Un-fuckin-believable.

Kev

Kev Brock music

“Evil Fred”…

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Ya know, this song has always been important to me. “Evil Fred” my original folk song about a serial killer on the loose. This song has always been performed at all of my gigs; it’s also one of my most requested originals, and I will probably end up bringing that one back. I will do a little re-writing on that one though. Change the lyrics and the music around some. I wanna bring that song back to youtube with just me performing at home. I’ve always viewed this song as an important anthem of mine.

I want to try and make this song a little better. Improve it some. Make the singing a little better, the lyrics too, and change the guitar parts around some.

There is already a live video of me performing Evil Fred at a gig, and that video got like 504 views. I wanna keep this song and keep it going ’cause I think this song deserves to get heard.

The song is dark and controversial, yes, but I think that’s why people enjoy it. They enjoy the creepy sound of it. That was the goal with the song; I wanted it to be scary. Evil. I want to do a little re-write. The song has meaning to it. The song was never meant to be a radio-friendly hit. There was a story I wanted to tell behind it. The song is about an ax-murderer who is hiding out and you just never know when he’ll come out and find you.

The song also got the biggest applause by the crowd every time I performed it live. It’s a special song to me and it deserves to be big. To me, that song is the “Stairway To Heaven” in my musical life. Always has been.

If I ever made my first studio album with a real CD cover, this song will probably make it on there.

I almost wanted to do a concept album of the Evil Fred character, but I threw that idea in the trash, and thought it would be better if I just left the character mysterious in one song. I still do plan on giving it a re-write, though.

Should I keep writing dark & evil original music? I probably should but I just write whatever comes out of me. It all depends on what I’m feeling. I wrote “Evil Fred” ’cause maybe I was angry about something and it was a way to help get those feelings out of my system. I wrote that song years ago. Sometime around 2004-2005, maybe a little earlier. It was originally titled, “Here Comes Evil Fred”, but I cut the title in half. See? The song has been re-written too many times. Sometimes it takes a lot of re-writes to make it perfect.

Not trying to sound like an ego-maniac but this song deserves to be huge and you might even agree with it. I really shouldn’t throw it away and keep it going.

Kev

Celebrity news, movies

Angelina Jolie, just got even more respect from me…

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I know all of her male fans are pretty upset and disappointed that she removed both of her breasts but I totally support her for her ballsy decision. Her breasts is a huge part of what made her an iconic figure in Hollywood. In her younger years in her career, she used to be naked in films a lot — most notably her film, “GIA”. Her huge breast size also helped her get signed as Lara Croft “Tomb Raider” and other action movies that made her sexy. Her image was all about sex in her earlier days in her career. As she got older and now has a large group of adopted children with Brad, she immediately got out of her sexy eye-candy image to focus on family. Now she got out of her eye-candy image for good by removing her breasts completely.

Her mother died of ovarian cancer and Angie was worried she was gonna get the same thing. So pretty much, the main reason why she removed her breasts ’cause it was in fear of getting cancer and she removed them hoping that will help avoid it. This was a really brave and ballsy move no matter what you think of it. I’m sure she was scared as hell to do it and it was the toughest decision to make. You gotta feel sorry for Brad though, since he won’t have any tits to play with but kudos to him for sticking with her and getting his full support.

I’ve been a fan of Angie for years. Goes way back before she even became an iconic star. I’ve been a fan of hers since her films: “Hackers”, “Girl Interupted”, “GIA”, “Pushing Tin”, etc. Still am a fan of hers and still love her to this day. I love her even more for doing this brave move. She has always been heroic and inspirational. She did great things for the country and for children overseas.

I’m sure she’s going to miss having boobs but she wants to do what’s best for her children and her family. She wants to be alive for them.

Now that she did what she did, what now? Is she still gonna act in film? She still has Disney’s “Maleficent” that she’s going to star the lead in. That film might be her final role in front of the camera, but I think she wants to concentrate mostly on directing films in the future. She is an incredible woman, though. Even though I don’t like most celebrities in this industry, I’ve always had the utmost respect for Angie.

It’s gonna be interesting to see what she’s gonna look like now. I’m sure a new picture of her will surface the internet soon enough. She’s probably gonna be flat-chested and much thinner now, I would think.

Congrats to Angie. She’ll inspire many women around the world because of this. I think other women will follow.

Kev

Politics/war

Obama, how much more heat can the man get? Just impeach him already…

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Obama’s in a major backlash in three different controversies right now. Over Benghazi, the IRS targeting tea-party groups, and Eric Holder wiretapping Associated Press phones.

I don’t know much about the IRS, taxes, and money stuff with politics, but I’ll read into that stuff more to learn more about it. When discussing politics, I don’t really get into the money stuff too much. I’m more into country-first kind of stuff like the violence and war, things like that. I do know what tea-party is though, they’re conservative groups who opposes taxes and government spending.

About the Associated Press wiretapping stuff, Eric Holder and the Obama Administration had no right to do that. It’s invasion of privacy, and the news media deserves their freedom of speech as well. Sure enough, Eric defended himself and claims he’s doing it for the country, but I still think he’s a lying snake.

Obama just continues to get worse and worse. He’s at the point where he’s the next Richard Nixon.

Read more information on this stuff, here.

For the past week or so, I’ve been ranting about Obama all week long and sure enough, people just kept defending the man. People will keep defending Obama on everything no matter how much he hurt us, lied to us, and did bad things to this country. Those lefties, uggggghhhhhh. I hate those left-wingers, they just don’t want to wake up and look at reality. It’s amazing to me that they don’t seem to get hurt over Obama’s lies over the years. That’s all Obama has been doing during his president runs is lying.

I’ve also been accused of hating on Obama just for the sake of hating. Not true. I never trusted the guy from the very beginning. Always found him to be a bit of a sick and twisted snake even when he was first running. I was siding with McCain/Palin team that whole time, I remember.

I try my best to get people to not believe in Obama and tried to get people not to trust him but no one will listen to me. That’s my goal, is to get people to listen. Try to get people to have 2nd thoughts about Obama. Get them thinking, “Maybe Kev is right, maybe he isn’t to be trusted?”. Trying to bring things to their attention on what kind of man he really is. Sure enough, the supporters will still have his back and stay loyal to him.

I’ll hate any politician or President who make our country look bad, not just Obama. All of them. Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t hate every President. There have been great leaders in the past like Lincoln, FDR, Andrew Jackson — they are a few of my favorite Presidents. I was never a fan of Reagan and JFK — they were snakes too — even though a lot of people saw them as heroes.

People are really weird when it comes to political and government debates; facebook is proof of that. Everyone wants to think they are right all of the time. I’m never gonna change my opinions and thoughts about Obama, no matter how hard people try to defend him. I’m not gonna quit.

Kev

TV

Another thought about the new “24” show, is it a test for the big screen movie??? I would say absolutely!!!

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Some may wonder why FOX has decided to do another new “24” show instead of the big screen “24” film that they have been planning for years. I might of figured it out. I think it’s a test to see what kind of response “24” will get to this day. The show ended about 3 years ago and I think the network just wants to see if “24” still has it’s large fan following. Some may have forgotten “24” and there are still plenty of people who don’t even know about the show. The show will indeed bring all of their veteran fans back and of course, will help make new ones. I’m sure that the people who have never watched the show before, will start watching it on Netflix before the new show comes.

I think this new show is just a test for the big screen film that might happen. If this new show is a huge success, then they may go ahead with the “24” theaterical release movie. This could be why they brought the show back for a short-run, I bet. “24” deserves big-screen treatment. It could help make the action scenes even more violent and gritty; that’s why everyone wants a “24” movie so badly.

I hope a “24” movie happens too. It’s a bad-ass show. Love it too much!

Kev

The Official Music Website of Kevin Brock – Brocking N' Rolling