Eugene Concerts 2010

COLBIE CAILLAT 2010 TOUR EUGENE, OREGON CONCERT POSTER

$12.99

MELVINS 2010 EUGENE CONCERT TOUR POSTER

$11.99

SPOON 2010 EUGENE CONCERT TOUR POSTER – AUSTIN ALT ROCK

$11.99

EVERY TIME I DIE 2010 EUGENE CONCERT TOUR POSTER -METAL

$11.99

HENRY ROLLINS 2010 EUGENE, OR CONCERT TOUR POSTER -PUNK

$11.99

LES CLAYPOOL Eugene Oregon 2010 Concert Gig POSTER

$10.70

HELLYEAH Eugene Oregon 2010 Gig Concert POSTER

$10.70

THRICE & MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA 2010 Gig Concert POSTER Eugene Oregon

$10.70

eugene concerts 2010

A salute to “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”

For those of you who are at least in their fifties, you will remember the tall, black, baritone-voice of the now late great Gil Scott-Heron who was best known for his 1970 work, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” Mr. Scott-Heron breathed his last breath sometime this past Friday, May 27,2011 as a patient at a New York City hospital. The exact cause of his demise is still unknown though as a former drug addict, he had been at war with several health maladies for a number of years. He was 62 years old.

Gil Scott-Herron has the unfortunate distinction of being a referred to constantly as the forefather of the hip-hop genre, but in his own words just last year in a New Yorker magazine interview he said, “I just think they made a mistake.” He also stated in that same interview that he feels that many misinterpreted “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” which was what anyone who heard his voice on the radio back in 1970 would describe as a diatribe against the mass media and America’s insatiable craving to consume.

In an earlier interview with The Telegraph in February of 2010, Mr. Scott-Herron said that “People would try and argue that it was this militant message, but how militant can you really be when you’re saying the revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner? My songs were always about the tone of voice rather than the words. A good comic will deliver a line deadpan—they let the audience laugh.”

Gil Scott-Heron began his life in Chicago, but as a teenager, he moved to New York City where he won a scholarship to the Fieldston School in the Bronx after his teachers noticed that he was a talented writer and storyteller. Felix Adler, the noted philosopher and humanist and also the founder of Fieldston explained the mission of his school by stating that “The ideal of the school is to develop individuals who will be competent to change their environment to greater conformity with moral ideals.”

As a student in this remarkable academic and social environment, Scott-Heron published a murder mystery before the age of 20 entitled The Vulture. While the work failed to reach a large audience, those who were fortunate enough to make its discovery were thrilled by its accurate and vivid depiction of the urban decay and racism in American culture of that time which despite the fact that many refuse to accept, still exists today.

Upon his arrival at Lincoln University, he met his future musical collaborator Brian Jackson and in 1970 they released Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, which included the now famous, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”

Four years later, Clive Davis of Arista Records, signed Gil Scott-Heron and began churning out his music on albums released at least one every year between 1974 and 1982. In a 1979 concert, Gil Scott-Heron shared a Madison Square concert stage with the likes of Jackson Browne and Bruce Springsteen.

In the mid-1980s, Gill Scott Heron fell victim to drugs and was eventually bounced from his contract with Arista. He continued to perform however but had only a single album released between 1982 and 2010. While many hip-hop performers in recent years have borrowed from his works, creating samples, weaving Scott Heron’s artistry into their own music, he has not been pleased. “I don’t want to tell you how embarrassing that can be” he shared with the New Yorker in the interview referenced above. “Long as it don’t talk about yo mamma and stuff, I usually let it go. It’s not all that bad when you get sampled—hell, you make money. They give you some money to shut you up. I guess to shut you up they should have left you alone.”

Despite his constant and ongoing struggle with his addiction to drugs, he continued to perform and in 2010 he collaborated with producer Richard Russell and miraculously they released a kind of bluesy and spoken word album entitled I’m New Here. It is in a word, a masterpiece.

This past week, he had just returned from a European tour when he became ill and checked himself into New York City’s St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center.

I will miss him.

Eugene Skeef’s Udu Song – with the London Philharmonic Orchestra