The 27 Club

What is the 27 Club you ask?

The 27 is:

a) A swingers sex club in Phoenix, AZ

b) the 27 women who have let me see them naked. 

c) musicians who have died at age 27

If you answered A, you are obviously on the wrong blog. If you answered B, you're way, way under. And if you answered C you're correct. 

Original Bluesman Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain are just a few of the members of this prestigious club.  But there are a few rules for membership:

27 Club Rules

1. You have to be a famous musician. 

2. You have to be dead at age 27

3. Your death must be from something drug or alcohol related.

* the third rule isn't really a rule, just more of a guideline. 

The Truth About the 27 Club

 The truth is, there is no 27 Club and its all bullshit. There is nothing unusual or mysterious going on, and there is no curse that causes musicians to die at age 27. Furthermore, this phenomenon has been studied by scientists and researchers and it has been proven that musicians are just as likely to die at any age, not just 27. 

 An Australian study conducted at the Queensland University of Technology performed a mathematical analysis of over 1,000 musicians and found 86% died at ages other than 27 while only 7% did. (source: Time.com)

  Likewise, the British Medical Journal published a study in 2011 that also concluded there was no increased risk of musicians dying at age 27. 

 For all the poor, unlucky bastards who died at 27, there are just as many , if not more musicians who died at other ages. John Lennon (40), Elvis (42), Jerry Garcia (53), Sid Vicious (21), John Bonham (32), Bon Scott (33), Keith Moon (32) Layne Staley (34) are just a few I can name off the top of my head. 

 And don't forget the ones who have used drugs/alcohol heavily and survived like Ozzy Osbourne, Keith Richards, Steven Tyler, Alice Cooper, and Lou Reed to name a few. 

Getting Old: What Rock Stars Dread

 PsychologyToday.com has written that getting older is a major threat to our creative enterprises.  

 After age 30, we become more emotionally stable, more conscientious, more agreeable and less open to new experiences. 

 The fact is, becoming older more boring, conforming and adjusted can be a major threat to a rocker who's livelyhood depends on being youthful, rebellious, wild and dangerous. The public wont buy into it. 

 Want proof? Look at Paul McCartney. He wrote/cowrote 27 number 1 songs with The Beatles all by age 30. Since then? His last number one hit was Say Say Say in 1983 over 30 years ago. 

 The Rolling Stones, who began their careers with several number 1 hits, last topped the charts with Honky Tonk Women in 1969  

What Does This Prove?

 Rock n Roll is for the young, and for those rock stars nearing age 30, getting older can be a scary concept. To think that they are only 3 years away from waking up one morning 30 years old, irrelevant, obsolete and your palm blinking red hoping to God that perhaps you will be renewed. 

...Ahh the firey ritual of Carrousel. 

 So yes some rock stars die at 27 but no more than at any other age. 

 If Hendrix or Morrison died in their thirties we would all be talking about the. "Thirty Something Club" today. 

 Which of course would all be bullshit too. 

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The Five Stages of Rock: Stage 3

Too Much F*cking Perspective

Nigel: It really puts perspective on things, though, doesn't it?

David: Too much, there's too much fucking perspective now. 

- From This is Spinal Tap

   Stage 3 begins right around that magical age of 27. I was

 haunted by depressing thoughts during this period. This 

period of my mid-twenties was rough. After the end of my 

first marriage, I battled, depression, alcoholism, and drug use.

I made 2 suicide attempts during this time. 

BY AGE 27

* Hendrix,Morrison,Joplin,Robert Johnson,Kurt Cobain 

completed their bodies of work 

* Thomas Jefferson wrote The Declaration of

 Independence.

* Einstein had created the "Special Theory of Relativity."

* Steve Wozniak, Co-founded Apple Computer.

* Napoleon Conquered Italy

* Orson Welles directed Citizen Kane

 

   What the hell had I done? not a damn thing. I had always had these grand notions of me being a famous writer or musician, but now at 27 I was faced with a grim reality. 

Over 100 billion people have ever been born in all human history  and nobody has ever heard of most of them. Only a fraction of all those people have ever been famous, or well known for anything. The majority of people are born, live and die without leaving a trace that they were ever here, and you are most likely going to be one of them. 

   That's a hard pill to swallow. Where's Morpheus? I'd rather take the blue pill right about now, so I can go back to living in ignorant bliss.

 

   It sends a chill down your spine. It's like a slap in the face whenever

 you have that brief moment when you come face to face with 

your own mortality. It's not a thought,there are no words, 

it's just a feeling, that one day you will not be here, at least

in the form that you are currently familiar with.

   It was this realization along with the fact that I already had 

one failed marriage behind me, that sent me into a very 

dark place, where I stayed for several years. This period is 

stage 3, and it lasts for however long it takes you to get out

of it. There's that general sense of dread around age 27, 

the dread of 30 rapidly approaching, then the realization 

that your twenties are gone and middle age, for the 

first time is visible far away on the horizon. 

_________________________________________________

   My musical tastes reflected this ever-present sense of dread.

 The Doors,Pink Floyd, Lou Reed & The Velvet Underground, 

Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Neil Young, Syd Barrett, David Bowie. 

The singer/songwriter for the first time had become the dominant 

voice in my life. Music that told of solitude,

loss, alienation, pain. The "I'm young and invincible, so let's 

party," attitude that was my musical life of my early twenties 

was over. 

Day after day, love turns grey
Like the skin of a dying man
Night after night, we pretend it's all right
But I have grown older and
You have grown colder and
Nothing is very much fun any more.

One of My Turns - From "The Wall" 

Pink Floyd: The Wall

   After my first marriage ended at age 26, I did nothing

but locked away in my home doing nothing but drinking and 

listening to Pink Floyd, The Wall for about a good 2 months. 

   The Wall is a case study in alienation, abandonment and 

isolation, and the kind of paranoia, and insanity that can arise 

as a result of 'building walls around yourself." 

   I love this album because I've always found solace in being 

able to identify with the alienation that the main character in

the album feels. It lets me know its ok to feel down, so listening 

to it is a very cathartic expeience. However, the main character 

inevitably feels guilty and tears down his wall and exposes 

himself to the outside world. So while I can identify with the 

isolation that pervades the album, there is also hope

that eventually I'll be able to "tear down my own wall as well. 

Syd Barrett

   Syd Barrett, was the founding member of Pink Floyd. I'm not

sure how many people know that. The Pink Floyd that most 

people know today is completely different than Syd Barrett's 

Floyd. All that remains from Barrett's time with the floyd, is 

one album "Piper at the Gates of Dawn," and the band's name

which it was given by Barrett himself. Legend has it, Barrett 

got the name from two blues records he owned by musicians, 

"Pink Anderson," and, "Floyd Council."

 Dark Globe - Syd Barrett

   Nobody really knows why but after recording their debut 

album, Barrett, gradually became insane. He lost touch with 

reality, and soon found himself kicked out the very band that 

he gave its name too. A couple albums of solo work were 

produced before dropping out of sight entirely in the mid-

seventies until his death in 2006.

   The recordings are raw and some say its a rambling mess 

of false starts, fumbled notes and off-key vocals, but personally

I think they're brilliant. It's literally the sound of insanity.

Barrett completely and unashamedly bares his soul on these

records and I find that alot more real that most of the crap, 

people try to pass off as music these days.

   The Doors

People fear death even more than pain. It's strange 
that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of 
death, the pain is over. Yeah, I guess it is a friend.

- Jim Morrison

   The Doors were one of the first really 'dark' bands to come 

along. People are Strange, The End, Riders on the Storm,  

are still some of the darkest songs out there. 

I believe in a long, prolonged, derangement of the senses in order to obtain the unknown.

- Jim Morrison

   I looked up to Jim Morrison in a way, during the depression

that followed my divorce. I felt so helpless that maybe if I too 

pursued a 'long, prolonged, derangement of the senses,' that 

maybe I would 'Break on Through to the other Side," and 

finally find peace and comfort there. 

The Velvet Underground

 

  For me, the Velvet Underground is just pure escapism. Venus in Furs, is just one of those songs that can pull you out of your reality and into another world. I'll let that song loop and replay for hours on end, while I just strum a Dm chord over and over, kinda a 'musical meditation.'

  

 

 

Heroin - Lou Reed & The Velvet Undergound

   The first time I heard Lou Reed sing "heroin" it kinda scared me in a way. It 

was disturbing to hear someone sing what almost appears to be a love song to 

a drug. 

It's my wife, and it's my life, haha.  

   With the droning guitar and Lou Reed's trippy sounding voice I like to close 

my eyes and space out to this song. It also inspires me to really bare my soul and don't 

hold back, anytime I'm trying to be creative.  

 ____________________________________________

   The depression and general overwhelming sense of dread 

pervaded begining of my mid-twenties gave way to a high 

period that lasted into my early/mid thirties. 

   But this was nothing more than a lame attempt to hold on to

my early twenties. This period of drinking, partying and 

screwing around was also my way of dealing with my divorce. 

This 'lost weekend' lasted well over five years. 

   Lots of hanging out in bars, where strange dudes would 

offer you even stranger drugs...

    ___________________________________________

 Ok, I've covered alot of ground so let me explain... 

Stage 3

* The 'mid-twenties' blues

* Desperately trying to party away the fact that 

   yer gonna be 30 soon

* Musical tastes begin to shift from loud, party, sex, drugs 

   and rock n roll, and start to incorporate more deep, emotional

   and intellectual stimulating themes.

________________________________________________

Coming up next time, Stage 4