Dizzy O'Brian

The Beatles in our Living Room When I was just a tyke, somewhere around first grade, my family and I would gather in our living room on Saturday nights for our weekly television watching ritual. This included some cartoon shows, like The Flintstones and such but it also included the Ed Sullivan show. My parents sat in their comfy chairs towards the back of the room and I always sprawled out on the floor directly in front of the T.V. I still remember how Ed would start the show by saying he had ‘a really big shoe’ for us that night. I can remember some of the regular acts which included Lamb Chop and the little Italian mouse Topo Gigio. So you can imagine our shock and awe when, one night in 1964, Ed introduced a musical band from Liverpool called The Beatles. See my post on the legendary music rock groups. I had only a faint notion of what rock ‘n’ roll was, from listening to my little turquoise blue transistor radio. My mainstay in music, to that point, had been Beethoven and Bach. I...

How I Discovered Music Beautiful nature I grew up in sunny Southern California, first living in South Pasadena and then, at around the age of five, we moved to La Canada. This was originally a little hamlet tucked into the foothills next to Pasadena, before they put the 210 freeway through. At that time, La Canada was a very rural place and, to me, actually quite magical. There were large groves of Oak trees and a wilderness sort of park next to a swamp, which was bordered by the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, or JPL. It was here that I discovered my intense love of nature, spending countless hours romping through the park or the foothills. I was infamous for carrying about live creatures in my pocket; a legless lizard, a turtle or a frog or two. I would always ask whatever hapless adult neighbor I saw if they wanted to see ‘my critter.’  In the spring, when the tadpoles hatched at the park, my friends and I would carry buckets full of frogs back home. The park has now, alas, become ...

The History Of Rock ‘N’ Roll Excalibur The Oxford School Dictionary defines Rock ‘n’ Roll as; “a kind of popular dance music with a strong beat, originating in the 1950s.” But let’s dig a little deeper, shall we? See my post on the legendary groups of rock 'n' roll. This same dictionary gives two verbal definitions of rock; 1; “to move gently backwards and forwards or from side to side; to make something do this.” 2; “to shake someone or something violently.” And, in the same book, the first verbal definition of roll; “to move along by turning over and over, like a ball or wheel; to make something do this.” One could postulate, literally a large rock or boulder, embedded into the ground at the top of a hill and some force comes along to rock it, gently backwards and forwards or from side to side, until it becomes loose and moves along down the hill by turning over and over like a ball or wheel, perhaps dislodging other rocks in its path and causing an avalanche. Movement. Chang...

What Is Alternative Rock Music?         This is a rather interesting case history as Alternative Rock was a direct response to what was seen, at that time, as the commercialization of Rock and Pop music. I have previously posted  articles  on this blog having to do with what was originally a counter culture effort being seized and utilized by business interests.    This was simply big business recognising that a market existed in the supposed youth culture and effectively attacking it to the point where the youth culture reigned supreme and other age groups became marginalized.                                                              Alternative Rock can properly be considered a subgenre of basic Rock n’ Roll. It began in the nineteen seventies and became more popular in the eighti...