In the Nirvana song Pennyroyal Tea, Kurt Cobain sings "Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally". Cobain may be sighing but Leonard Cohen is still speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song, as he turns 80 this Sunday.
In the early nineties I picked up a Leonard Cohen tribute album called "I'm Your Fan" Here are three of my favorite songs from the disc.
REM - First We Take Manhattan
The Pixies - I Can't Forget
Ian McCulloch - That's No Way To Say Goodbye
Although the disc contained a cover of my favorite Cohen song "Tower of Song" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, I prefer Jesus and Mary Chains version.
Anton Newcombe the mastermind behind the San Francisco band, Brian Jonestown Massacre, is notorious for being hard to get along with. He fires or frustrates band mates until they quit at an impressive rate. Of the 40+ musicians that have past through the usually 5 to 7-piece band, several have gone on to make some excellent music.
In Ondi Timoner's Sundance Film Festival 2004 Grand Jury Prize winning documentary DIG!, there is a scene where fed-up guitarist Peter Hayes and another band member quit the band and just walk away from the tour down the streets of Cleveland. Hayes went on to form Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. That name comes from Marlon Brando's biker gang in the movie 'The Wild One. Hayes and BRMC co-founder Robert Been had considered naming their band after the rival gang in that film, but being called 'The Beetles' may have caused some confusion.
Here is their song EVOL
Ian Sefchik also had a limited membership with Newcombe's band before he reunited with his former high school classmate Sharky Laguna to record a couple of albums as Creeper Lagoon.
Brian Glaze was a drummer in an early incarnation of BJM, he now spends his Thanksgivings recording music with Greg Ashley of the Gris Gris. He has recorded a few solo EPs and albums. Here is a grooveshark link to the closing song on his third CD, Green Living. Brian Glaze- Shake Shiloh
