Tony Bennett – 92
Harry Belafonte – 92
Burt Bacharach – 90
Ennio Morricone – 90
Loretta Lynn – 87
John Williams – 87
Willie Nelson – 86
Quincy Jones – 86
Little Richard – 86
Yoko Ono – 86
John Mayall – 85
Richard Chamberlain – 85
Herb Alpert – 84
Pat Boone – 84
Jerry Lee Lewis – 83
Johnny Mathis – 83
Sam Moore – 83
Kris Kristofferson – 82
Buddy Guy – 82
Charlie Daniels – 82
Don Everly – 82
Frankie Valli – 82
Wanda Jackson – 81
Charley Pride – 81
Kenny Rogers – 80
Bill Withers – 80
Gordon Lightfoot – 80
Smokey Robinson – 79
Herbie Hancock – 79
Mavis Staples – 79
Tina Turner – 79
Ginger Baker – 79
Ian Hunter – 79
Grace Slick – 79
Spencer Davis – 79
Giorgio Moroder – 79
Bob James – 79
Phil Lesh – 79
Neil Diamond – 78
Joan Baez – 78
Ringo Starr – 78
Aaron Neville – 78
Ann-Margret – 78
Mike Love – 78
Dionne Warwick – 78
Tom Jones – 78
Toni Tennille – 78
Bob Dylan – 77
Barbra Streisand – 77
David Crosby – 77
Graham Nash – 77
Charlie Watts – 77
George Clinton – 77
Darlene Love – 77
Paul Simon – 77
Art Garfunkel – 77
Wayne Newton – 77
Carole King – 77
Dr. John – 77
Helen Reddy – 77
Paul Anka – 77
John McLaughlin – 77
Eric Burdon – 77
Mark Lindsay – 77
Paul McCartney – 76
Brian Wilson – 76
Andy Summers – 76
Sly Stone – 76
Mike Nesmith – 76
Jean-Luc Ponty – 76
Rodriguez – 76
Taj Mahal – 76
Mick Jagger – 75
Keith Richards – 75
Jimmy Page – 75
Diana Ross – 75
Roger Daltrey – 75
Joni Mitchell – 75
Randy Newman – 75
Roger Waters – 75
David Gilmour – 75
Steve Miller – 75
Julio Iglesias – 75
Albert Lee -75
Geddy Lee – 75
Tony Orlando – 75
Barry Manilow – 75
Dickey Betts – 75
Eric Clapton – 74
Rod Stewart – 74
Stephen Stills – 74
Bob Seger – 74
Jeff Beck – 74
Billy Cobham – 74
Robbie Robertson – 74
Jon Anderson – 74
Ray Davies – 74
Boz Scaggs – 74
Gladys Knight – 74
Tim Rice – 74
Robin Trower – 74
Dolly Parton – 73
Neil Young – 73
John Fogerty – 73
John Paul Jones – 73
Pete Townshend – 73
Debbie Harry – 73
Van Morrison – 73
Itzhak Perlman – 73
Steve Martin – 73
Bette Midler – 73
Don McLean – 73
Al Green – 73
Elton John – 72
Iggy Pop – 72
Robert Fripp – 72
Dennis DeYoung – 72
Jimmy Buffett – 72
Linda Ronstadt – 72
Cher – 72
Daryl Hall – 72
Carmine Appice – 72
Ry Cooder – 72
Steve Howe – 72
Howard Shore – 72
Melanie – 72
Steven Tyler – 71
Kenny Loggins – 71
Jim Messina – 71
Brian May – 71
Joe Walsh – 71
Bob Weir – 71
Mick Fleetwood – 71
Ronnie Wood – 71
James Taylor – 71
Carlos Santana – 71
John Oates – 71
Stephen Sondheim – 71
Donald Fagan – 71
Andrew Lloyd Webber – 71
Ian Anderson – 71
T Bone Burnett – 71
Ozzy Osbourne – 70
Robert Plant – 70
Stevie Nicks – 70
Steve Perry – 70
Grace Jones – 70
Rick Ocasek – 70
Billy Joel – 70
Jackson Browne – 70
Ted Nugent – 70
Cat Stevens – 70
Lulu – 70
Steve Winwood – 70
Brian Eno – 70
Brian Ferry – 70

the best times to tell stories and the best time to reveal things and the best times you’re interesting

are the times you really dont wanna write at all

and thats when your world is inside out and youre in a free fall

and you think youre gonna die.

during those times every part of your brain is firing because its trying to protect you from freaking out

and every sliver of fear is done stretching and theyre now ready to run.

problem is, im not fixin to die.

im tony pierce. busblog. king of siam. leader of the underdogs.

defender of freedom.

all of this is happening for all the right reasons and my network of angels are working overtime to get me where i need to be

just like the done when i wanted to go to the world series.

did i deserve to go there, and the parade afterwards? no.

no more so than any one else.

likewise i dont deserve all these people writing and DMing me and emailing me to provide help. and i feel bad when i dont seem super eager when they offer me this or that.

unfortunately i want the world.

unfortunately i know what i want, and i can see the future, and i can read peoples hearts, and when i tell them about every purplish vein in there it can be jarring and uncomfortable.

which is why even though its so damn cliche i would love to start a podcast and get it going fast. today i was procrastinating reading the bible because i didnt do it on sunday and the whole time i was all i wanna interview him and her and him and her.

i got to rodney on the roq. and i imagined what id ask him. and i predicted how he would get shy and how i would ask him about his shyness

and i would ask him do you know that morrissey song ask

shyness is nice / but shyness can stop you / from doing all the things in life you want to

i want a podcast so i can ask a music legend if he is familiar with a hit tune from a music legend that he helped get big, and ask him if he feels seen with that song.

because no one else is dumb enough to ask it.

and to me, thats wanting the world.

i was like ma thats tom morello from rage against the machine

who not only looks like a thinner, wealthier, healthier me,

also happens to be a damn guitar hero.

as in, he’s one of the guitar heroes you have to face off against in the billion dollar best selling video game guitar hero

born in harlem, but raised in naperville i think.

like chicago, his mom is half italian half irish and his dad is from kenya. but the good part of kenya. his great uncle was the country’s first elected president. i guess they had kings before that. who knows. who knows anything?

tom probably would. he graduated from harvard and then found his way in one of the most powerfully aggressive hyper political heavy rock bands of the 90s. the singer zach de la rocha had this wild afro and stormed around the stage exactly like you would if you were trying to incite a riot.

riots were incited.

only one guitarist in this band that sounded like it had 80. and that one was tom. he plays solos like no one else.

it’s painfully sharp at times.

it sounds like what electrocution probably feels like.

the music is meant to get under your skin. the bassist has a stylized filled in giant tattoo of all black.

also, tom is a cubs fan. also, he played in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band for a little while, and on eight tracks of his album “high hopes”.

when chris cornell left soundgarden for a little while, rick rubin suggested that he hook up with tom and rage because zach had left them to do something far more interesting than be a super star singer of a incredibly important band

chris and tom and tattoo guy and the drummer (who has been dating juliet lewis for a while) made a band called audioslave which showed us what rage would sound like with an otherworldy singer instead of a dynamic rapper shouter.

they kicked ass.

audioslave’s first record went triple platinum, and their follow up went regular platinum. they had a medicore third record, broke up, and tom found himself in a band with the dude from cypress hill and chuck d from public enemy called prophets of rage which was an interesting thing on paper but weirdly… bruce, chris, chuck d, b real, there was something very different about tom and zach

it was a one two punch in the middle of grunge that took it up a notch. for years if you wanted to put a little spice into a huge festival youd have the red hot chili peppers, but on a night of say 15 bands, if rage was on the bill they better be put on last because how are you gonna follow a hurricane of angst and power and barbed wire solos?

which brings us to sunday. some devout fans of rage and tom thought that presenting at the oscars is the opposite of punk rock, and to wear a tuxedo is not very rock n roll.

but anyone who has listened to him in interviews would know, he’s not really here begging for you to love him. he’s just here to save the world.

i still have cable tv. i still miss my mtv. even though i listen to jazz on sundays i couldnt tell you four miles davis records let alone four white piano players.

i try but i am Joe Sixpack who fortunately moved to LA at the right time otherwise id have 2.4 kids and a four bedroom 3 bath house with a messy garage in suburbia right now, id be fatter and balder and seeing possibilities with Mitt.

but like i said the Lord nudged me west and opened my mind so you can all get inside

when i landed on this coast in the mid 80s, one young woman after another told me i was on the wrong path;  that i was steering into sexism and stupidism and lazyism, and god bless them for calling bullshit because my dude friends sure as hell never told me those things.

so here we are in the future i never expected. a world without mtv. dumbest president ever, voted on by the most gullible 60 million plus some russian bots. only music can tame this wild beast so after seeing this glorious write up in my favorite paper, i told the gf that i bought tickets, in cleveland, to listen to classical music in that gorgeous setting.

she was all, fuck yeah.

until i learned that the stones are playing that same night here in LA. what to do? the Stones are olllllld. there can’t be that many more chances to see Keef and Mick bouncing around. they want my money and i want to give it to them.

do you know how many times i say Siri, play Some Girls?

all the times. do you know i devoured keiths book? how much i love how they took black music and immersed themselves in it and washed it behind their ears and let it seep into their nooks and crannies and marinated in it album after album in the early days and then, as if it was like magic, 1967 appeared and out came the perfect swirl of brit pop, american r ‘n b, and lsd. her satanic majesty’s secret sauce.  the perfect storm. the storm before the storm because boom boom boom one classic after another.

will this tour be a celebration of experimentation and exploitation?

no. it too is living in the future they never thought would exist: selling out stadiums in their mid 70s.

but everything is possible in this brave new world so when i said baby the Cleveland show i wanna go to is the same day as the Stones show, what do we do?

she said, “lets go to Cleveland, ive already seen the Stones. And you have too, several times.”

and my mind was blown because once again a delightful woman had gently advised me that i buy in to the hype time and again. i am the most basic of bitches. the most gullible of guppies. i am Joe Sixpack, quietly being led to the slaughter.