Storm Large Has Balls and Class on Rockstar/Supernova!!!
Portland's statuesque rocker was indeed all of that with her talent and charming moxy on the popular CBS reality show last evening
To be truthful right off the bat....
I was not a regular viewer of the aforementioned show on CBS, and usually could be found, plying my craft on that evening, playing professional, live music in a venue somewhere here in town (such as Storm usually does ,on a regular basis in PDX),
so the idea of a reality show actually being able to present worthy candidates to actually fill the lead singer chair of a professional -level band was not a real, tangible atmosphere for me. It usually takes a bit more 'mojo' than all of the TV hoopla that can surround the "entertainment" generation.
(For me, I think the above feelings started with that show that tried to find a lead singer for INXS, one of my favorite bands at what they do, so it seemed contrived to mess with the delicate nature of finding qualified people to fill out a band and not tamper with the "vibe" it usually takes to get all on board and feeling good).
There is, also in the modern era, the dreaded "karaoke" thing that activates some sort of presumed performance gene in people, and serves to inject a feeling (sometimes painfully false) that they too can get up on a large stage and really deliver (with undying stamina and verve) a truly entertaining show, in front of multitudes of people, and presume to hold their attention for a full 90 minutes in an arena show.
Not always the easiest thing to do...
just ask someone like for instance...Mick Jagger, about that sometime when he crosses the street in front of you...
TV Ratings are the driving force and the ruler of Rock Reality shows and also feed into the resulting search for players/superstars who could represent the "lone gunmen rocker"... those who are outside of any formed current contingent of group, bringing up the ratings ante to "Superband" level with their own varied (see provocative...) singular resumes.
Enter also the everyman contestants, who are up on the fully on atmosphere of the rock music stage. Some participants at more 'professional' levels than others, just trying to catch the brass ring /smell of success, all during a season of episodes of a TV show.
Some are replete with their somewhat forced and not fully formed routines, schemes and miles of professional dreams, managing all the while to sing just a few cents sharp on pitch, and not know the pitch center of what is correct. Some on the other hand are closer to the source of what it is to entertain people.
Now try filtering all of this through a process where voting America gets to be a big portion of the eventual judging of talent.
In the long run, I still think that big time experience, repetition on the bricks, hitting the boards, if you will... doing your gig and honing it, plus the passing of time will get you in tune with your voice...let's not forget that shear desire to be a professional...
It just takes hard, hard work.
Now unless you were living under a rock lately in the Portland, OR area, you were probably privy to all of the buzz surrounding the subject of this blog, vocalist Storm Large, who was finally eliminated on tonight's episode of Rockstar/Supernova.
Although I am certainly not wishing her any bad luck or discounting her obviously higher level of performance aura compared to her other competitors that evening,
somehow I just didn't hold out a bunch of hope for her, compared to the other singers who had that certain something that dovetailed a bit more easily with the tatooed atmosphere of Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee's rock circus smell.
Once again, I hope the last paragraph is not misunderstood....
While saying that I didn't hold a bunch of false hope for her, I say this with a big caveat...
I do really believe that Storm is destined for larger, more soul satisfying endeavors just from knowing and seeing her presence in the music wars here in Portland. That is why I didn't worry a bunch with her.
I also had the satisfying resignation that she would not be voted ahead into the next round, and eventually enslavement to that particular band of rock individuals and/or the the execution of those leather-bound rituals...
I felt a, excuse the word 'largeness' in her emotional content.
She was bigger than the staged atmosphere that evening.
I say this because of that giant heft of emotion I felt tonight when she sung the
Pink Floyd tune "Wish You Were Here", a tender, elegiac ballad, not in the usual performer ovure / general Floyd-ian overall orbit (save for their great ballad anthem "Us And Them" from "Dark Side Of The Moon") and a brave choice to fly against type on the show.
As she performed that evening on TV, Storm had an aire of
connectedness, vunerability and polish that the other contestants, in my humble opinion, could not meet up with...
The kind of polish that does come from that desire of hitting the bricks night after night and doing your dirty work on a stage in front of people as she has done as a matter of public record for quite a while now.
That assured-ness doesn't come from just formulaic moves and gesticulations...
It comes from doing your time on a stage. That confident polish informs the complete and bigger package of her aura also, and frankly it doesn't feel (to me) that she is in need to be in front of all of the studded dog collars or piercings to do her thing.
She WAS bigger than all that.
That evening Storm also dedicated the song to her mother, so the tears shared and shown seemed truly driven, not contrived and deeply felt...
Those feelings being larger than this competition could ever explain or contain.
All those components pulled together seemed to put the fine point on a bigger, perhaps deeper resonance of her performance that evening.
I did see a tear come down from the eye of bassist Jason Newsted (ex-Metallica), caught on camera for all to see, and also from Storm near the end of her tune...
and to be totally truthful, I did choke up a bit myself.
This is what moves me to write after seeing all of this.
Seeing some genuine emotion coming from the TV screen...
Not of a contrived nature, mind you, but real and tangible.
All of those aforementioned chasers of the rock brass ring, with the aforementioned trappings of piercings,studded dog collars and wrist bands will chase what they acknowledge (or the producers will steer) what they should be concerned with as trendy during the ensuing season of this show...
But they all don't necessarily co-exist in Storm Large's orbit, with or without the Supernova smell
on it.
The multitudes of the world at large will continue to be elsewhere...waiting to be entertained again by her.
To be truthful right off the bat....
I was not a regular viewer of the aforementioned show on CBS, and usually could be found, plying my craft on that evening, playing professional, live music in a venue somewhere here in town (such as Storm usually does ,on a regular basis in PDX),
so the idea of a reality show actually being able to present worthy candidates to actually fill the lead singer chair of a professional -level band was not a real, tangible atmosphere for me. It usually takes a bit more 'mojo' than all of the TV hoopla that can surround the "entertainment" generation.
(For me, I think the above feelings started with that show that tried to find a lead singer for INXS, one of my favorite bands at what they do, so it seemed contrived to mess with the delicate nature of finding qualified people to fill out a band and not tamper with the "vibe" it usually takes to get all on board and feeling good).
There is, also in the modern era, the dreaded "karaoke" thing that activates some sort of presumed performance gene in people, and serves to inject a feeling (sometimes painfully false) that they too can get up on a large stage and really deliver (with undying stamina and verve) a truly entertaining show, in front of multitudes of people, and presume to hold their attention for a full 90 minutes in an arena show.
Not always the easiest thing to do...
just ask someone like for instance...Mick Jagger, about that sometime when he crosses the street in front of you...
TV Ratings are the driving force and the ruler of Rock Reality shows and also feed into the resulting search for players/superstars who could represent the "lone gunmen rocker"... those who are outside of any formed current contingent of group, bringing up the ratings ante to "Superband" level with their own varied (see provocative...) singular resumes.
Enter also the everyman contestants, who are up on the fully on atmosphere of the rock music stage. Some participants at more 'professional' levels than others, just trying to catch the brass ring /smell of success, all during a season of episodes of a TV show.
Some are replete with their somewhat forced and not fully formed routines, schemes and miles of professional dreams, managing all the while to sing just a few cents sharp on pitch, and not know the pitch center of what is correct. Some on the other hand are closer to the source of what it is to entertain people.
Now try filtering all of this through a process where voting America gets to be a big portion of the eventual judging of talent.
In the long run, I still think that big time experience, repetition on the bricks, hitting the boards, if you will... doing your gig and honing it, plus the passing of time will get you in tune with your voice...let's not forget that shear desire to be a professional...
It just takes hard, hard work.
Now unless you were living under a rock lately in the Portland, OR area, you were probably privy to all of the buzz surrounding the subject of this blog, vocalist Storm Large, who was finally eliminated on tonight's episode of Rockstar/Supernova.
Although I am certainly not wishing her any bad luck or discounting her obviously higher level of performance aura compared to her other competitors that evening,
somehow I just didn't hold out a bunch of hope for her, compared to the other singers who had that certain something that dovetailed a bit more easily with the tatooed atmosphere of Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee's rock circus smell.
Once again, I hope the last paragraph is not misunderstood....
While saying that I didn't hold a bunch of false hope for her, I say this with a big caveat...
I do really believe that Storm is destined for larger, more soul satisfying endeavors just from knowing and seeing her presence in the music wars here in Portland. That is why I didn't worry a bunch with her.
I also had the satisfying resignation that she would not be voted ahead into the next round, and eventually enslavement to that particular band of rock individuals and/or the the execution of those leather-bound rituals...
I felt a, excuse the word 'largeness' in her emotional content.
She was bigger than the staged atmosphere that evening.
I say this because of that giant heft of emotion I felt tonight when she sung the
Pink Floyd tune "Wish You Were Here", a tender, elegiac ballad, not in the usual performer ovure / general Floyd-ian overall orbit (save for their great ballad anthem "Us And Them" from "Dark Side Of The Moon") and a brave choice to fly against type on the show.
As she performed that evening on TV, Storm had an aire of
connectedness, vunerability and polish that the other contestants, in my humble opinion, could not meet up with...
The kind of polish that does come from that desire of hitting the bricks night after night and doing your dirty work on a stage in front of people as she has done as a matter of public record for quite a while now.
That assured-ness doesn't come from just formulaic moves and gesticulations...
It comes from doing your time on a stage. That confident polish informs the complete and bigger package of her aura also, and frankly it doesn't feel (to me) that she is in need to be in front of all of the studded dog collars or piercings to do her thing.
She WAS bigger than all that.
That evening Storm also dedicated the song to her mother, so the tears shared and shown seemed truly driven, not contrived and deeply felt...
Those feelings being larger than this competition could ever explain or contain.
All those components pulled together seemed to put the fine point on a bigger, perhaps deeper resonance of her performance that evening.
I did see a tear come down from the eye of bassist Jason Newsted (ex-Metallica), caught on camera for all to see, and also from Storm near the end of her tune...
and to be totally truthful, I did choke up a bit myself.
This is what moves me to write after seeing all of this.
Seeing some genuine emotion coming from the TV screen...
Not of a contrived nature, mind you, but real and tangible.
All of those aforementioned chasers of the rock brass ring, with the aforementioned trappings of piercings,studded dog collars and wrist bands will chase what they acknowledge (or the producers will steer) what they should be concerned with as trendy during the ensuing season of this show...
But they all don't necessarily co-exist in Storm Large's orbit, with or without the Supernova smell
on it.
The multitudes of the world at large will continue to be elsewhere...waiting to be entertained again by her.
posted by Carlton Jackson at 1:59 AM
1 Comments:
i'd like to see storm on stage with you carlton as nobody can rock it from the heart like yourself
thanks for your insight into the reality of tv
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