Posts

Hollywood The Band, A Tale of Sex, Drugs, And Rock And Roll

hollywood the band coverThere’s a relic of an ironic joke that if you can remember the 60’s, you weren’t really there. The drugs were psychedelic and mind-expanding, the clothes worn as a defiant costume of flowers, paisleys and neon colors, and the arrogance of youth permeated the atmosphere like a clashing haze of ideas and ideals that rose upward and outward from a center core of music that can still be heard on any classic oldies station. The same could be said for the early 70s. Bands that etched their genius onto the landscape like The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Billy Joel, The Beach Boys, Grand Funk Railroad, Bob Seger, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Simon & Garfinkle, The Buffalo Springfield, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Santana, and Rare Earth were just some of the names that regularly vied for #1 on music play lists.
On none of those lists would you have found the band, Hollywood, a ragtag group of wanna-be rock ‘n roll stars who fought through their drug-induced sex haze long enough to let their creative musicality and stumbling managers guide them to their dream. You wouldn’t have found Hollywood listed because author Steven Jordan Brooks hadn’t yet imagined them on paper. But the band lives as surely as any fictional character representing a time, a place, and an era. “Hollywood The Band, A Tale of Sex, Drugs, And Rock And Roll” is a story of that band’s journey to secure a record deal. To get there, they had to survive the issues of the day: politics, music maneuverings, unlimited designer drugs, unbridled sex, homosexual awareness, the Viet Nam war, and racial tensions.
Brooks is a classically trained musician who transitioned from rock ‘n roll performer to management and production. Those years before he eventually morphed into an English and drama teacher became the research of his saga. He uses Hollywood, The Band, as the catalyst for telling a story of the 70’s, name dropping real bands and real-life situations into the fictional mix. While the story rings true and is likely a composite of characters Brooks lived and partied with, Read more

Vibrate into the New Age!

I love when certain words slide off my tongue as easily as dipping aforementioned tongue into a delectable Carvel soft chocolate ice cream cone on a hot summer day. Take synergistic, for example, a word that has been rolling around in my head for the past hour, just begging to be released. Synergy to me is when at least two diverse entities converge and the result is more powerful and wonderful than either part individually. Today my past and my present and my future all collided. When I was very young, I had a favorite uncle who was both a widely-respected newspaper editor and a prodigious national book reviewer. When I’d go to visit him, the walls were literally lined with books he’d reviewed. With each visit, he’d stimulate my thirst for knowledge with gifts of these treasures and encourage me to write about what I knew, what I saw, and what I wanted to be in this world. Never did I dream that one day I’d be on publicists’ lists to review their authors’ efforts, Read more