One Voice, One Vision

The news and images coming out of Haiti for the past week have been devastating. As with any disaster of that magnitude, it is gut wrenching to sit in your home and feel helpless as thousands of innocent people struggle for survival and to get basic needs met. Empathy kicks into overdrive and you want to help in any way you can.

This applies to musicians too. But instead of merely donating time or money, they use their talents to put on benefit concerts and telethons, the proceeds from which are donated to whatever cause is most in need. Tomorrow evening "Hope for Haiti" will air on most television networks commercial free.

Putting on a benefit show after a natural disaster seems to be standard procedure these days. That might come off as snarky and sarcastic, but it's not meant to be. With 24 hour news access, to ignore human suffering is criminal and I'm glad so many people, celebrities or not, are stepping up to offer financial and material aid to those in need. But it wasn't always like that. Just by doing a little bit of reading, I discovered that from the late 1960s to the early 1980s there were really only a handful of benefit concerts given with their goal mainly of raising awareness of human rights. The two exceptions were the concerts for Bangladesh (organized by George Harrison) and Kampuchea.

Then a not so great singer from a post punk British band had an idea that changed everything. Bob Geldof, take a bow.

In late 1984 Bob Geldof was watching the news and saw a story on the famine in the African nation of Ethiopia. He was so moved by the story that he and a fellow musician, Midge Ure of Ultravox, came up with the idea of writing and recording a single to raise money to help the people of Ethiopia. They gathered many of England's top recording artists of the time and calling themselves Band Aid, produced the song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" The song sold over a million copies in the first week alone.

But Geldof wasn't satisfied. He wanted to do more. He and Ure organized Live Aid, simultaneous concerts in London and Philadelphia with proceeds going to famine relief in Africa. An estimated 1.5 billion people across 100 countries watched the live broadcast, which also inspired concerts in other nations such as Australia and Germany. Live Aid raised approximately $283 million dollars for Geldof's cause. The concerts brought together so many famous performers that even today the lineup is staggering.

Twenty years after the original show, Live 8 came into being. Live 8 was a series of benefit shows preceding the G8 Conference and Summit intending to bring attention to the Global Call for Action Against Poverty. The shows planned to pressure the world leaders at the G8 Conference to drop the debt of the world's poorest nations, increase aid and negotiate fair trade policies in those countries. Guess what? It worked.

The impact of Live Aid cannot be underestimated. Live Aid is what made all the other benefit concerts that have come after it possible. Sure, I'll bet someone else would have had the idea to put on a show to raise money for charity, that's not exactly a new idea. But without Geldof and his vision, his absolutely dogged determination that people pay attention and give a damn, it would have been nowhere near as successful as it was and continues to be.

I was up at 6 am watching the Live Aid broadcast live from Sydney when the London show began. I watched every moment of the entire show, and it is something that has stayed with me my entire life. Bob Geldof is one of my personal heroes. He has shown that one person, one voice, can change the world. Now let's go help Haiti.

The Rock Star Trade Show

My husband works for a music company, and as I type this he is attending the first day of winter NAMM in Anaheim, California. NAMM stands for National Association of Music Merchandisers, and it's a big yearly convention where all the music dealers that are part of the association come together to introduce their new gear.

Basically, it's a trade show for rock stars.

All sorts of artists troll up and down the aisles of the convention center looking at and trying out gear. Musicians who are endorsed by particular companies play in that company's booth and hold autograph signings. Local venues and hotels host gigs by all sorts of bands. It's a veritable who's who of the music world.

Naturally, it's a place where I would kill to be.

This year I confirmed that Slash, Lemmy, Kerry King, Joe Satriani, Rudy Sarzo, Nikki Sixx, Jason Mraz, Adrian Vandenberg, Tommy Shaw, Neil Schon, Nuno Bettencourt and Dave Mustaine will be attending. Can you say holy guitar hero? And those are just the people I know for absolute certainty will be there. I'm sure I'll hear of so many more during my nightly phone call with my husband that the shade of green I turn will be visible for miles.

My husband is attending for the fifth or sixth time this year and he's become a bit jaded. The first year he was there he saw Stevie Wonder and he was so excited when he called me he could barely get out a coherent sentence. Now he's all, oh yeah, I already met so-and-so. I asked him if he had time to please go get a picture from Nikki Sixx since I'd read his book recently and fallen in love with his side band Sixx A.M., and he said, "Well, I saw him last year, but if you really want it, okay." But put Jonathan Cain within 10 feet of him and he'll be hyperventilating. He also comes home with photos and autographs of all these esoteric jazz and fusion players that are beyond me, yet he could pass Rob Thomas in the aisle and have no idea who he was. Our views of who and what is cool vary just a bit.

In my past life as a marketing "executive" I used to handle all the details of the trade shows my company participated in and work the shows. I worked with snotty interior designers asking for free samples. A show like NAMM just boggles my mind. Maybe one year he'll actually invite me to go along...hint, hint.

Just Older

Today is my first post of the new year. I took the month of December off to participate in the holiday craziness in an attempt to make beautiful memories for my family. Did I succeed? Probably not. But while I wasn't thinking about music so much, I was able to pay attention to music. And here's what I came away with.

1. I don't get the fascination with Lady Gaga. Okay, she writes her own stuff, but I don't think she's a good singer. How would she sound without ProTools and all sorts of electronic wizardry behind her? The costumes are an attempt to keep the spotlight on her as much as possible. To me, she's Madonna 2.0. Madonna did it first, and did it brilliantly, and is still doing it. Somehow I don't think Lady Gaga will still be relevant in 25 years.
2. I do, however, like Taylor Swift. Again, she's not a great singer but unlike Lady Gaga she's not contrived. For her age, her songwriting chops are impressive and I think she'll only get better with time. I also think she's a good role model for young girls.
3. Will someone please tell Mr. Jon Bon Jovi to stop rewriting "Living On A Prayer?" You're so far away from the working class roots you cater to in your songs that it just doesn't ring true anymore.
4. I think it's completely unfair that Adam Lambert got blasted for his performance at the American Music Awards. Madonna and Britney kissing is titillating, but Adam kissing a man is horrible. Absolutely wrong.
5. True talent lasts. I couldn't help but be moved by performances by Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Sting and U2 at the televised showings of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary show and the Kennedy Center Honors.

This past weekend, I was at a family party and the subject of music came up with some of my younger cousins. When asked what kind of music she liked, my 14 year old cousin replied "Screamo." Excuse me? Apparently, this is a new classification for emo punk. She named a bunch of bands I'd never heard of, except for My Chemical Romance, and I'm hard pressed to give you a song title even though I've heard of the band.

That conversation, in addition to my little list of observations about the past month, started me thinking. Had I become one of those people? One of those people who decry new music while glorifying classic rock? One of those people who claim everything after (insert your own date here) sucks?

Had I become - gulp - OLD?

No. No, I refuse to go there. While I am going to be 40 this year, I can still rock out with the best of them. I still turn it to 11 (granted, it's usually when I'm in the car without the kids, but still). I refuse to turn into one of those people. To quote Bon freakin' Jovi, I'm not old, just older. It will never be too loud.

So this year, my musical resolution is to have an open mind and open ears. But I still won't be buying any Lady Gaga.