50 años de Los Picapiedra (9/10)

Hoy, 30 de septiembre de 2010, se cumplen 50 años desde que una de las series animadas más exitosas de la historia, Los Picapiedra (The Flinstones) apareciera por primera vez en TV.

Muchas tardes durante mi niñez fueron amenizadas por las ocurrencias de Pedro, Pablo, Wilma y Betty.

Sin más que agregar, porque no hace falta, les dejo el opening:

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Hands Commercial (Jon Lajoie)

por lastmario.

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Never Say No to a Panda

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Lynyrd Skynyrd's Inspiration is a Free Bird at Last

por Caryn Ganz, tomado de Stop The Presses! y gracias a lastmario.

Leonard Skinner, the high school gym teacher who inspired the band name Lynyrd Skynyrd, has died at age 77 in a Riverside, Florida nursing home.

Skinner, born Forby Leonard Skinner, never intended to become a piece of rock-and-roll history. He was simply enforcing a dress code at Robert E. Lee High School in the late 1960s when he fatefully sent a few teenagers to the principal's office for violating new rules about hair length. "The hair had to be two fingers above the eyebrows, couldn't touch the collar," Skinner explained in an interview several years ago. "One of the ones I sent down was in this band ... called the One Percent," he recalled, referring to the band that would later become Lynyrd Skynyrd.

The student, threatened with suspension, brought his father in to school to argue that the band was helping contribute to his household income -- and that long hair was a requirement for that quintessential rock-and-roll look. The principal, unmoved, had a solution: a haircut and a wig. The young musician (the band hasn't identified which one of them it was, but Skinner counted guitarist Gary Rossington and singer Ronnie Van Zant among his pupils) wound up tucking his hair up in a hairnet. The band renamed itself after Skinner in 1970 and swapped out the vowels for the letter Y before the release of their 1973 debut "Lynyrd Skynyrd." Despite its creative spelling, the band's name is phonetically pronounced "Leonard Skinnerd" (though most often mispronounced "Lih-nerd Skinerd").

Skinner was unaware of his connection to the southern rock heroes until he heard a radio DJ say, " 'Here's a song by Lynyrd Skynyrd.' That's the first time I had an idea something might be happening," he later recalled in an interview with Van Zant's former bodyguard, Gene Odom.

Though he claimed to dislike rock music, Skinner gave the band permission to use a snapshot of his Leonard Skinner Realty sign on the inside album artwork for their 1975 LP "Nuthin' Fancy." Because his real work phone number was included on the placard, he wound up fielding many calls from curious fans over the years.

Though the relationship between the band and its former gym teacher was often painted as strained, Skinner always stressed he was just enforcing the school's rules and never had any bad blood with Lynyrd Skynyrd. The group even paid their former coach $100 to introduce them at a Jacksonville show, and Skinner became close with Odom. After a 1977 plane crash killed three of the band's members -- including Van Zant-- Odom became a regular at a lounge owned by Skinner.

"To make a long story short, we kind of adopted one another over the years," Skinner said.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, known for their hits "Freebird" and "Sweet Home Alabama," went on to release 12 studio albums, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March of 2006. When asked about the young rebels he inadvertently inspired, Skinner gave a suitably rock-and-roll response: "They worked hard, lived hard and boozed hard."

Black Gives Way to Blue - Alice in Chains (2009)

Si nos ubicamos en el 2009, 14 años han pasado desde que los rockeros de Seattle publicaron Alice in Chains (el disco del perro), 13 desde que hicieron el espectacular MTV Unplugged, 7 desde que el cuerpo de su cantante, Layne Staley, sucumbió ante el abuso de drogas y 3 desde que William DuVall, su nuevo cantante, compartió tarima con ellos.

Palabras más, palabras menos, esta es la historia reciente de la más discreta del club de cuatro bandas más importantes surgidas en la escena de finales de los 80s y principios de los 90s de Seattle. Que más discreta no se interprete como peor, cada una tuvo su estilo y su momento. Rara vez ocurre en la historia de la música un movimiento tan contundente capaz de cambiar todo.

Aplaudo el hecho de que AIC es capaz de volver 14 años después con una solución de continuidad que logra borrar todo ese tiempo y hasta es capaz de colarse en las listas de popularidad actuales. Siempre estuvimos allí, con Layne en donde quiera que esté, parecieran decirnos.

El título es toda una declaración de sentimientos. Ya no estamos de luto, estamos tristes. El fantasma de Layne pareciera recorrer cada track del sombrío disco, tanto que a veces es complicado saber si canta él o "el negro" DuVall.

El disco es bastante depresivo, transmite sentimientos nostálgicos, tristes, con canciones cuasi acústicas, en especial la joya con la que cierran, homónima al disco, Black Gives Way to Blue, con sir Elton Jhon en el piano, vaya lujo. En esa misma onda tenemos la popular Your Decision y When the Sun Rise Again.

Por otra parte tenemos canciones más metaleras, con ese estilo medio doom que los caracteriza, con riff de guitarra bien poderosos, lentas y más lentas, como la primera, All Secrets Known, la segunda y más popular hasta ahora del disco, Check My Brain y otras como Acid Bubble, A Looking in View, Take Her Out, Last of My Kind, y Private Hell.

Como suele suceder con las cosas que transmiten un sentimiento tan marcado, te llega o no te llega, si no te llega te parece cualquier cosa, si te llega, te toca. Y ese es mi caso.