The State of the Blog Address and Levon Helm

My fellow music fans. Sometimes life gets in the way of your passions. Since I moved to Boston, this blog has been a real piece of crap. Maybe 4 or 5 posts a month, if I'm lucky. Things are finally turning around here in Beantown, and I want to jump-start and revamp My Aimz is True. I need a redesign, and eventually a new URL. I'm tired of dealing with the Blogger/Google man. But before I do all of that, I will start posting about the music I love once again! Yay!

Many very important musicians have passed away in the last few months, and I have not properly honored any of them yet. I know that blogs are supposed to be timely and all of that shit, but come on, these musicians were important and influential enough to national and international music that they should be honored again and again, and not just in the week after they die.

Let's start with Levon Helm (1940-2012). When I was a college sophomore, around 19-20 years old, and thought that I was cool as hell but I was actually a total tool, that time when you are naive enough to believe that all of your dreams are actually going to come true, and your dreams and ambitions have no limits, my friend Jenn and I were convinced that we were going to start a classic rock radio station, and the first song we were going to play on our opening show was "Ophelia" by The Band. I spent the summer of 1993 alternating between The Band and whatever other classic rock I was into (but mostly The Band). This is when I discovered Levon Helm. Of course the classic rock station never materialized. I went to grad school for biochemistry and Jenn dropped out after our junior year to move to New York. I have been a loyal Levon Helm fan for the last 19 years, and I am sure that Jenn has too.

Ophelia
Buy: Greatest Hits (2003 remaster)

I won't go into a long biography on Mr. Helm, but I will direct you to the best thing on the internet written about him and his music by my colleague/buddy Adios Lounge: The Roots of Levon Helm.

On of my favorites:



I also really enjoyed Mr. Helm's last two records, Dirt Farmer and Electric Dirt. Yeah his voice had gone to hell, but the passion behind the music is still there. Loud and clear.

False Hearted Love Blues
Buy: Dirt Farmer (2007)

White Dov
Buy: Electric Dirt (2009)

"Levon was the glue, not just in The Band, but in all of what people think of when they think of North American music. He was a great unifier; a great glue. He unified blues and country, rural and city, and even North and South. Luckily he showed us all the way to keep it together and let it swing."
- Jeff Tweedy, lead singer of Wilco