Sex, Drugs and …
There’s a new movie out, Get Him To The Greek, which is kind of a rock and roll road movie. Jonah Hill plays a low-level record company executive charged with babysitting a decadent rock star, played by British comedian Russell Brand. It’s pretty amusing and fairly entertaining (Brand plays Aldous Snow, reprising his role from Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and as you can imagine it gets all Serious and Introspective at the end.
Although this is a wild comedy, the movie does offer a fairly accurate peek behind the curtains of the rock and roll machinery – or at least, the parts of the machinery that still survive. A crushing economic reality has smothered the excesses of the music business, and the world you see in Get Him To The Greek doesn’t really exist any more, if it ever did. But as I said, it’s a comedy …
The film also toys with the idea of what it takes for a person to be a so-called “rock star.” The characterization of Aldous Snow reinforces the general consensus that rock stars are also insecure, immature and sometimes lonely – just like the rest of us!
After seeing the movie with my son I told him this story: in the 1970s, the Who came through Houston on one of their tours. There was this party thrown by record execs and the band was supposed to be there but I didn’t see any of the Who for the entire time I was at this party. Anyhow, I was leaving and trying to find my way out when I came to a large usher dude standing in a doorway. As he pointed to the exit, I peered into the darkness behind him.
It was a small little room, created by those portable room dividers and inside the room was a “Tommy” pinball machine. And standing alone, quietly intent on the pinball game, was Roger Daltrey. All by himself, in a dark alcove, while a big happy party raged just steps away. That was one little peek into the “real” life of a rock star, protected and kept in the darkness until it was time for the spotlights to be turned on once again.
MP3: “Turn The Page” by Bob Seger
MP3: “Going Up” by Infant Sorrow
MP3: “Life’s Been Good” by Joe Walsh
MP3: “Star Star” by the Rolling Stones
MP3: “The Clap” by Infant Sorrow
MP3: “What’s Your Name” (live) by Lynyrd Skynyrd
30 Days Out 
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