Earth, Wind & Fire: a black man's Chicago

I love Earth, Wind & Fire.

I also love the band Chicago. Call me a fag. I like to refer to them as one of the original "boy bands". Bunch of guys hanging out and singing cheesy ballads while jamming out with synthesizers, horns, funky bass lines and Peter Cetera.

Both Earth, Wind & Fire and Chicago are similar with their horn sections. Earth, Wind & Fire has got the rhythm and soul while Chicago can sometimes bring the funk and blues. Both are essential listening material.

I saw Earth, Wind & Fire in concert in Reno, Nevada back in 1998. They fucking smoked! It was an awesome performance, I must say. At one point in the concert, they turned off all the lights and the drummer did a solo that went for a good twenty minutes under black lights that illuminated his headband and drumsticks. Awesome!

I've been listening a lot to CD's I haven't visited in quite some time. The Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire I've been enjoying because they remind me of when I was a kid. The music coming out of the late 70's is a big deal for me since I was born in '73.

Of course, as I got older and listened to music more and more, some of my fondest memories come from the music being made by Gary Numan, Falco, Missing Persons, Styx, ZZ Top, Sting, The Police, Paul Simon, Prince, Men At Work, Huey Lewis & The News, Michael Jackson, Dire Straits, Peter Gabriel, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Genesis, Wang Chung and a bunch of others.

By my late teens and early twenties, we had the music of the early 90's. These are CD's that I'm also rocking out to lately. Deee-Lite, C+C Music Factory, Technotronic, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Young MC, Tone-Loc, Milli Vanilli, Snopp Dogg, Boyz II Men, Kris Kross, PM Dawn, Arrested Development, Run DMC and many more.

The great thing about the 90's music was the movement in rap and hip hop. I won't forget the first time I heard N.W.A. or Public Enemy. Holy shit! Good times.

Then there was "YO! MTV Raps!"

Of course, MTV back in those days was actually MUSIC television and not the pile of festering horseshit it is now.

Thank God for VH1. What sucks for me is the fact I don't have cable to see VH1.

The last great video I saw was on MTV2. It's by an artist known as Kenna. The song is called "Hell Bent". It's fantastic. I liked it so much, I found it on Kazaa and burned it to CD. I suggest you look it up on the internet and check it out.

I'm just killing time babbling about such things while I'm continuing to load my iTunes up with my CD collection. I need some quick money and I figure I don't need a good majority of my CD's anymore now that I have an iPod and a computer.

But I'm going to hold onto my Chicago discs. And my Earth, Wind & Fire, I think.

Oh, and my Milli Vanilli. That's a timeless piece of audio right there.

Yeah, I dig Milli Vanilli.

Girl, you know it's true...

... ew ew ew...

You know what? I never got into the hair bands of the late 80's/early 90's. I did enjoy Guns N Roses, though. I couldn't and still can't stand Def Leppard. I like some of the earlier work of Bon Jovi but not the new shit.

I also liked Van Halen and some of Van Hagar as well as David Lee Roth's early days in his solo career. "Eat 'Em And Smile" is a great album. He also made some great videos for MTV.

Poison was good, too. I'd sometimes watch "Headbanger's Ball" on MTV. Another thing I remember from my youth when watching MTV was "Remote Control" and "Club MTV".

OK, I better quit while I'm ahead. I could go on for hours with all kinds of things relating to my music experience over the years... *YAWN*. I'll save it for a series of podcasts on WildVoice.com.

-Mike The Janitor
©2006
Millenoma Publishing