Tag: beatles cover band
Something familiar and Fab lurks with Blac Rabbit
Two gentlemen singing in harmony to create a fantastic melody in a song titled “Eight Days a Week”. That was John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and it happened on many songs for a decade. Yet I’m not talking about John and Paul in this case. I’m talking about a duo who can be seen in the act at subway stations in the New York area.
one thing you have to do today is watch this video of amiri and rahiem taylor covering the beatles – they sound exactly like lennon/mccartney and it gives me serious chills pic.twitter.com/lr3r9ew5Dm
— ? (@mattwhitlockPM) February 25, 2018
It was by chance I crossed a friend who posted a video of Blac Rabbit performing on Facebook. It’s pretty common to cross gentlemen from all over doing covers of Beatles work and sounding pretty good. This was different. This was John and Paul…at least in this writer’s opinion as well as others who cross them in the New York subway stations.
The Blac Rabbit website doesn’t seem to feature an “About” page to give up facts about these guys. Their Facebook page isn’t much more informative on the “about” section there, either. It was through a news article by a New York TV station that I found out that they are twin brothers, Amiri and Rahiem Taylor.
They began busking to make some pocket money, and found a receptive audience on the subway with their Beatles covers. The brothers say they’re continuing to perform on the subway while performing original music at venues across the city.
I also found out that they do have an about page on their website (yeah, slight me for that because I couldn’t find the damn thing myself):
Born and raised in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, identical twin brothers Amiri and Rahiem Taylor do not make the type of music that their borough of origin is usually associated with. Growing up surrounded by hip hop culture and all it’s glory, the Taylor brothers had more exposure in their house to pop, funk and soul music from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. So naturally when they began writing songs in high school, they decided “why not learn from arguably the greatest song writing duo of all time?” and proceeded to teach themselves how to play guitar and write songs based off of the Beatles. After high school they formed Blac Rabbit, bringing in former metal and church drummer Patrick Jones, followed by resident shredder Josh Lugo on bass (and sometimes guitar) to play their original psychedelic rock tunes.
They do their own music? Oh, yeah… Their own stuff can be found on SoundCloud while YouTube can show you more o their performances as well as their original stuff. Here’s one of their songs, just to whet your appetite:
With their harmony and abilities, it piques my curiosity where the group can go with their stuff. As someone who was drenched in the music of the same era as the Taylor duo, I know that can inspire rather grandly. It’s what their creativity brings that remains to be seen.
I also hope they go beyond New York. Let that be a memo to the Tampa Bay club scene in St. Pete, Ybor City and beyond in the Tampa Bay area: Lure these guys here. Could you imagine what that’d lure to your establishments? Just where in the area they’d end up performing in a busker spot remains to be seen but it’s not like we’re totally lacking on such locations. Ybor City, Pier 60, the West Plaza before a Lightning game. That’s just a shred of potential spots.
There is a question that remains though: Hass Sir Paul McCartney had someone tell him about this pair yet? Cover acts are not uncommon, but this is different. The Taylor duo and Blac Rabbit seem to have something “Fab” going on.
You can’t compare a win in Sochi to the cultural event of Lake Placid
“They’re as big as the Beatles!” “He is / she is / they’re bigger than the Beatles!”
That’s rock and roll and pop music, not hockey. The four Liverpudians who invaded North America 50 years ago last week and changed pop culture in America, set a new standard in music. They raised the bar for other groups to meet or exceed. From time to time in decades after the onset of the British Invasion and well after Beatlemania waned from the worldwide psyche, comparisons would be thrown out for different groups or different individuals who inspired a mania of some sort or another from their fans and who were wildly popular and charismatic.
The thing is the Beatles – both the event of appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 and their influence on pop culture and music – went well beyond a mania and album/record sales. They changed the course of music and their contribution still holds weight and influence today. Can you say the Bangles achieved that? How about the New Kids on the Block, or the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls? Is Justin Bieber’s music going to be endearing to the masses in the years ahead? One Direction?
Now what the bloody hell does this have to do with hockey?!
Last night while putting together Sunday’s deadliest s post, I came across Larry Brooks article in the New York Post that suggested that Saturday’s Olympic hockey win for Team USA over Russia was the biggest win for USA Hockey since the “miracle” at the Lake Placid games in 1980. I should not have to explain that event or that achievement to any single person who reads Raw Charge or knows the sport of hockey. If you want to know that story from those who were involved in it, I urge you to check out “Do You Believe In Miracles?” from HBO films. It’s not a dramatization like the Disney film “Miracle”, but it’s actual footage, actual interviews, actual recollections from the likes of Herb Brooks, Mike Bossy and other key players on both Team USA and Team USSR from the Games of the 1980 Winter Olympiad
Getting back to the point – Saturday’s shootout win by Team USA at Sochi over the Russian Federation was thrilling. It was playoff hockey as we know it here in North America and a great game by both teams… But in no way was it comparable to Lake Placid.
Lake Placid, the rag-tag college bunch trumping the versed pros of the Soviet Union, was a cultural moment. America was down; America was on a morale low that cannot be compared to at this time. Vietnam was in the recent past and the scars from it were still visible; Richard Nixon had resigned in disgrace almost six years earlier, and the US economy was in the gutter at the moment. Iran was in revolution and the American embassy in Tehran breached, with hostages taken and failures by the US military to rescue them.
Things were shit.
The Soviet Union’s ice hockey team was indomitable. I can’t even tell you how incredible and powerful and successful their national hockey team had been for decades on end in international play. The geo-political landscape was black-and-white: they were the enemies and they were a force that could not be stopped, a force that could not be trumped.
And what happened at Lake Placid? Herb Brooks coached a bunch of college kids above, beyond, and outside their abilities (and with a whole lot of luck) to beat them. Team USA didn’t just defeat the Soviets; they’d end up earning the gold.
So what the hell do the Beatles have to do with that?
February 1964 was a dark time In the USA as well. John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been slain in Dallas only three months earlier; “Camelot” was over. Race issues were at the forefront at home, a military action was taking place in Southeast Asia that would further define the generation but hadn’t escalated to an oppressive force at that point. The cold war raged on… The Beatles and their mania had already seized Europe but had failed to dent the US up until February 1964. An America in mourning got a shot of pep out of curiosity, and perhaps regained a moment of innocence that had been lost in Dealey Plaza with Kennedy’s assassination. Oh, I’m sure plenty of people turned up their nose during the performance of “All My Loving” (American TV’s live introduction to John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Richard “Ringo Starr” Starkey) – Sullivan’s own musical conductor famously stated that the hair was the only difference between the Beatles and everyone else – but the event of that performance stands out in American history… Much like Lake Placid stands out for USA Hockey.
There are no hockey events by USA Hockey – be it the World Junior Championships or the Olympic games – that compare to the feat of Lake Placid. And while the game of hockey probably enjoyed an uptick with the result of those games, it did not influence a grander embrace of the sport in America as-so-much boosted national pride; the chips were still down but god damnit! we beat the Russians! We can still do things!
