Tagged: Marilyn Manson

You don’t have to be stupid to rock!

Rockers have often been brushed off as stupid airheads with nothing in their heads but chicks and parties. You know – bad vocabulary, bad choices, not much to contribute with. Kind of like these guys:

beavis_and_butthead

But after almost 25 years in the business, interviewing more bands and artists than I can even remember, it hit me that I’ve rarely thought of anyone as “stupid”. Some have formal educations, some are street smart, and some are just naturally intelligent. You don’t always have to be a rocket scientist to be smart. Very few have been total airheads actually. 

Then I started digging into it. You’d be surprised how many rockers you’ll find that have fancy titles and impressive degrees to brag with.

Brian May (Queen) for instance… PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College in London. He began working on it 30 years prior to completing it in 2007, but got sidetracked when Queen hit the big-time. Apparently its never too late to finish what you started…!

Offspring’s Dexter Holland: He has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Master’s degree in Molecular Biology, both from the University of Southern California.

Phillip Taylor Kramer (Iron Butterfly) earned a college degree in aerospace engineering.

Rage Against the Machine‘s Zach DeLaRocha has a PhD in Anthropology from UC Irvine and RATM Guitarist Tom Morello is a Harvard Graduate. 

Frank Zappa is widely considered to be one of the most intelligent musicians ever, with a reported 172 IQ.

Then of course, there’s Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden). Where do you even BEGIN with that guy?!

He has been a top fencer, written two novels. Left school with A-levels in English, History and Economics, competed internationally in fencing, placing 7th in Great Britain, and has founded a fencing equipment company under the brand name “Duellist”

According to Wikipedia: Due to the wide variety of Dickinson’s pursuits, the Winter 2009 edition of Intelligent Life named him as a living example of a polymath.(=a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas)
He regularly flew Boeing 757s in his role as captain for the now-defunct UK charter airline Astraeus, which, as of 16 September 2010, employed him as Marketing Director.
 

Then you’ve got a guy like Gene Simmons (Kiss). As much as people might want to label him an idiot with stupid makeup, spandex, platform boots and fake blood, he’s definitely not an airhead. Well, us rockers know that, but the general public might not know it. Or maybe they do now, after seeing him on TV….

In 1970 he graduated from Richmond College with a degree in education and four languages- English, German, Hungarian and Hebrew. Not to mention his clever head for business.

Marilyn Manson has a degree in journalism and a background as Associate Editor at Fort Lauderdale’s 25th Parallel Magazine.

Dokken-guitarist Jon Levin is an attorney, who actually handled Dokken’s business until he filled the position as a guitarist instead in 2004.

[Jon Levin]

Greg Graffin of Bad Religion has a double major in geology and anthropology, he went on to get a Master’s degree at UCLA and then a PhD at Cornell University. He can reasonably be called Dr. Graffin, PhD of zoology and lead singer of Bad Religion. 

One of the guys who most people would probably brush off as an idiot is the “drag-queen” Dee Snider of Twisted Sister. But most of us who have seen and heard his speech in the US Senate (1985) know that Dee is anything but stupid. He proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that you should never ever underestimate anyone or judge a book by its cover.

There are plenty of examples, Alice Cooper had gained admission into the University of Arizona, University of Colorado and University of California-Davis – he declined all these offers.

Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P has always been interesting to interview, because he is incredibly intelligent. Listen to any interview you can find online and you’ll see what I mean. He might be slightly… unpredictable at times but once you get into a conversation with him, you know he can be thrown in to discuss anything with any academic. Same goes for Dave Mustaine (Megadeth).

You see these rock stars on stage in crazy clothes, makeup, decapitating themselves, drinking blood, using profanity and what not – and you’ll mistake them for brainless idiots. It’s just so far from the truth. Maybe Vince Neil doesn’t exactly strike me as a brainac, but thank god there are others out there who will show the world that metal isn’t for idiots – it’s for thinking people.

Well…. maybe not always… Angus Young is still wearing his school-uniform and guys like this probably should! :-)

 

Wine, whiskey and rock’n’roll!

 
I just celebrated my “alternative” Valentine’s Day. Filled up the tub with red “Jelly baff” which turns water to little jelly beads, that creates a really cool tickling feeling when the water moves. It comes in different colors and of course, I figured red was an appropriate color. Blinkar

Got in the tub and poured myself a glass of red MOTORHEAD Shiraz-wine… in a red glass.
That’s all the Valentine’s “reds” I needed. Röda läppar

 Lemmy’s wine tastes great and I love the cool bottle! I’ve been stashing up cool rock’n’roll wines lately. I found some of them here in Sweden, such as the ELVIS-wines. Some had to be ordered (but it was a quick delivery, I got it three days later) and some was already in the store.
 

Motorhead
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1_1267323713_elvis-wine
Celebrationcellars_2112_148715
Mansinthe-absinthe-marilyn-man
Vinceneiltequila
Vince
Celebrationcellars_2112_866872
Celebrationcellars_2112_389917
Celebrationcellars_2112_479876
Celebrationcellars_2112_956535
Celebrationcellars_2112_148957
Celebrationcellars_2137_17840b
Kiss_club
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1109_vida_nova_cliff

See the full gallery on Posterous

A few weeks ago, I ordered the limited edition RANDY RHOADS wine and didn’t think much of it. Until I remembered one small detail….customs.

I emailed the Swedish customs and asked about the laws regarding private import of wine. They told me that I was not allowed to order any kind of alcohol from the United States unless it was through an approved agent. It was okay to bring it into the country yourself, if you have it in your checked-in bag, but it wasn’t allowed to have it shipped to Sweden.

So I stopped the shipment and had them send it to my friend Blackie in Nashville. I’ll be going there sooner or later this year anyway, I’ll just pick it up next time I go.
 
I want the KISS-wines too. Some of them are expensive as hell, others more reasonable prices.
So many cool collectibles. I wouldn’t want to drink it, I just want it for the bottle! The Lemmy wine is okay, cause I bought a box of 6 bottles and I can always get more if I want. But the Randy Rhoads-wine is one of those things that I just want to keep.
 

 
And there’s just tons of cool stuff out there. MARILYN MANSON’S Absinthe “Mansinthe”, VINCE NEIL’s wines and tequilas, all kinds of other interesting brands – Mick Fleetwood, Cliff Richard, Foghat, Rolling Stones….. You name it.
 
I would love to start collecting all this stuff, but it’s difficult because of customs and all the rules. It’s not something I can just buy on eBay. It’s more of a project, but not impossible. Guess I can have it sent to my friends in the States and then bring it home, a little at a time. :)
 
I was going to post links to all those wines in case anyone was interested in buying or finding out more, but why not just Google it! :))
 
I’m going to have another glass of Motorhead Shiraz and go to bed.
What could be better for dozing off than a good, red rock’n’roll wine!