April 2, 2017 — While I was doing my chores as nurse, maid, cook, driver, appointment arranger and general cheerleader, there wasn’t time for radio listening, not really even time to check the things I follow in music news. Then, over the past couple of weeks, I started dabbling in my standard reading of the rock websites. Still, I didn’t really get much in the way of a feeling, the feeling that becomes one of those sub-themes of these silly stories I write. I wondered if it ever would come back, my general ability to feel, to create. But it is … coming back … sort of.

Perhaps it was the drive of this week, or perhaps it was just the feeling of almost getting back to normal; perhaps it’s the fact that I’m seeing and hearing so much music news, so much it’s like there isn’t anything else, but I am starting to feel something, something stirring in my head that might, sometime in the future, approach my normal ability to feel and create. So … I’ll start with the news.

As I said, I heard so much news, and each little tidbit could be its own story. I heard Aerosmith will put their rumored “last tour” that was to be in 2017 on hold because they want to make a new record. Personally, I’m thinking if Steven Tyler can still sing, and he definitely can, there’s not really any reason to actually retire. I heard Angus Young wants to record a new “AC-DC” record with Axl Rose as the singer. Axl reportedly will do it. I know Axl can sing too, but that isn’t AC-DC to me. Still, I like Angus’ SG guitar, so I’ll take that. And that takes care of the classic rock sound blurbs.

Then there was the pop station blurbs, and while pop can be a bit “who cares”, it’s usually pretty good information coming out of the Carson Daly show. Carson reported that one of those “One Direction” guys, Harry Styles to be specific, has a solo single coming out on Friday, April 7. Mind you, I don’t really care about that, but Carson Daly was very excited, saying the single will be reminiscent of ‘70s rock. News reports I found on that anticipated release has the producers saying it is supposed to sound like a cross between David Bowie and Queen. So? Pop going vintage rock? That could be interesting. And welcoming. I’m hoping it’s true that it sounds like vintage rock, and better yet, I’m hoping it works with pop music audiences.

Then, showing how utterly lost I was as far as time is concerned over the past six weeks or so, I did a search for new music news for my own current influences. If there’s this much music news I didn’t hear when I was in the hospital cave, then who knows? Perhaps I might have missed news I really will get excited about. And sure enough….

Somehow, okay I know how, I was sleeping in a hospital, I totally missed the February 20 release of the advance single, entitle Love, from my fav Lana del Rey’s soon-to-be released album.

Mind you, while I missed the single release (now with 42 million+ views and no plays on the radio, gotta love Lana fans), I was happy to see the advance teasers on the Lana album that came out this past week, proud really; I was proud to have seen them concurrently. Mind you, there was an earlier teaser I didn’t see. The earlier teaser was, according to the news, posters in Los Angeles featuring Lana with the title of the album, Lust for Life. Perhaps it was good that I wasn’t here in Los Angeles for that because I don’t need to be arrested for trying to take one of those posters down. But still, I would have loved to have seen one. As for the current advance teaser, a video trailer featuring Lana talking and using much symbolism, it has Lana’s fans to trying to figure out her “code”, her “hints” about her record. Aside from the references to overcoming the dark times of today, the main theme of Lana’s video though is her “creative process”, which she says is fueled by her new house – the “H” of the Hollywood sign, not to be taken seriously of course. The video is Lana … being Lana. She’s totally crazy, and I love her for it! This video was a great present for me, especially now!

As far as substance goes, the press reports on Lana’s record say mixed things about what it will sound like. One said it will have the typical “darkness” of Lana’s music, another said it will be “happy.” Perhaps it will be “happy-dark”; now that is something I could appreciate! Lots of the images Lana presents are vintage though, seeing a theme here, reportedly to strike a chord with kids who like vintage music, you know the kids who comment on Youtube videos saying they wished they lived in the generations of yesterday so they could have lived the vintage music in the actual vintage times?

I have noticed those comments a lot. There’s something deep inside, a conclusion I have, something I’ve thought on that subject for a long time, some story I have longed to write. I have a mix of feelings about the significance of all these ties to music the youth would call vintage, how I should be proud to be actually vintage, and the opposite, how I think there are things not vintage even in the vintage, things to carry, more importantly, things to not carry. I even think you can’t actually know unless you are vintage. Perhaps the popularity of vintage stems from the views of some, Lana obviously among them, that we are in dark times, and that music, vintage music itself made in a time when there were dark and powerful forces, things like like the cold war that existed in those times, is a cure for darkness. Fight darkness with darkness? Or is it fight darkness with vintage? Someday, I’ll figure this story out, this theme I’ve had as a potential subject for years now. Interesting that it is this theme, the theme of why vintage music persists, that is peeking out and staring at me, the one thing I think that is so very hard to pin down, that presents itself when I’m the lowest of the low as far as my own creativity goes. How is that fair? Or perhaps I just need to find my own metaphorical “H” and sit and think about it, stir my own creative juices. See? I’m close, close to being myself again.

In the meantime, I’m just way, way happy that I will get a new Lana record. What a nice present that record will be, especially at this time, my own personal dark time. And how about this for my people? Lana’s initials, LDR, reconfigured and reorganized, are the same as a really cool actual vintage frontman’s. You know the one!