What happened to our rock stars? Do we actually have them anymore? Or are we surviving on those who still remain from days gone by?

In my day we only had one kind of music, rock ‘n roll. We didn’t have this techno pill popping crowd, dancing around like headless chickens and drinking copious amounts of bottled water paying homage to djs that just don’t cut it as stars. Our heroes were true rock stars who performed outrageous acts on and off the stage.

It seems like the real rock star is a character from yesteryear and the only ones we have left are all in their sixties; guys like Keith Richards (who still practices stage diving, albeit out of palm trees), Ronnie Woods, Steven Tyler (still too drunk not to fall off stage), the prince of darkness himself, Ozzie Ozbourne, who, as the story goes bit the head off a live bat during a gig and Alice Cooper, who used to cut his own head off during his show.

And then there are the true legend rockers like Keith Moon from The Who, who drove his Rolls Royce into his next door neighbor’s swimming pool just to annoy him. Moon was also renowned for his practical jokes whilst on the road; apart from trashing every hotel room he ever stayed in, it was reported once that he broke into Pete Townsend’s suite and glued all his furniture to the ceiling.

And speaking of trashing hotel rooms no article on rock legends would be complete without a mention of Joe Walsh who was addicted to (among other things) throwing TV sets out of high rise hotel room windows. Yes Joe trashed many hotel rooms and even wrote about it in his song “Life’s Been Good” …. “stay at hotels tear out the walls, I’ve got accountants to pay for it all”

The stories continue about guys like Jim Morrison from the Doors who was prone to disappearing just before a gig only to be found a few days later drunk, at a local brothel; the band having appeared on stage without him. And the amazing guitarist Roy Buchanan who would wander off just minutes before curtain call and be found later chatting to locals in the street. One time old Roy got himself into a fight and ended up in jail; the gig was canceled.

And I am sure you are aware of the incredible on stage showmanship of Jimi Hendrix but you may not know some of the things he got up to offstage, apart from the endless amount of drug taking and womanizing. Hendrix would often, for some unknown reason, hock his guitar just before a gig. This was not a trivial problem with an easy solution like grabbing another guitar from somewhere else as Hendrix was left handed and his guitar had to be set up just right. Fender wasn’t big on left handed guitars in the sixties. So his manager, Chas Chandler, would firstly have to locate Hendrix, retrieve the pawn ticket from him and then go and buy the guitar back so they could do the gig.

There are so many great stories that have almost become urban legends, even myths about our rock stars from the sixties and seventies. These days all we hear about is whose been arrested for solicitation, drink driving and drug offenses. The stories have lost their edge, the current breed of stars have lost the flair for creating the legendary headlines of old that will remain part of rock history forever.

-Axel