You have to drink a lot to develop cirrhosis at the age of 27. And unfortunately, singer and keyboard player McKernan, one of the founders of the Grateful Dead, drank a lot. Before his death, Pigpen was the definitive embodiment of the original, slapdash, wasted blues incarnation of the Dead, before psychedelia and experimental proficiency became their defining element. He helped form the group, but was surpassed in musical ability by later recruits. Even before he died, he represented a throwback to “the way things used to be” for fans to argue over — not unlike his fellow 27 clubber Brian Jones was for the Rolling Stones.

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Amy Winehouse and the ‘Forever 27 Club’

Saturday, the first news headline I saw was:  “Amy Winehouse found dead at 27”.  For some reason, it felt a little more crippling that it was supposed to.

“It was a long-time coming”, is what most say (someone won an iPod by predicting the date on the website whenwillamywinehousedie.com) and maybe it was a long-time coming, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that however you look at it, the music industry has lost a really good singer and one of the most influential artists of the late part of this decade;  Lost a voice that embodied what Motown legends were made of;  And essentially, if you believe in the oddidy of the so-called Forever 27 Club – we lost another talented musician to the club of dead rock stars — those that never lived to see 28.  An age we cautiously outgrow, thinking of their fated (and un-fated) deaths at least once during the age of our own 27th year of life.

Essentially speaking, “27” seems to be rock and roll’s most unlucky number.  Sure there are those who have passed at this age due to overdoeses and drug addictions and battles with depression,  it’s the age that as we all know now took Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and now the second female in the club, Amy Winehouse.

There are more members of the Forever 27 Club;  some died because of medical conditions, car accidents and just plain, weird occurrences, and tragedies.  Any way you look at it, it is weird that so many musicians can’t seem to make it to the age of 28.  Other members of the Forever 27 Club include:  Ron “Pigpen” McKernan of the Grateful Dead, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Chris Bell of Big Star, even Robert Johnson a famous blues musician died at 27, cited for unknown reasons.

The creepiness of the amount of rock stars that die at this age poses the question, what about the age of 27 has put so many rock stars into the ground?  Is it behavior we expect from them (abusing drugs and alcohol, making bad decisions, driving drunk, getting on small planes?).  Is 27 an exceptionally hard age to live through when you are that famous (mine was a good year, but I am not famous)?  Or is it a question of just wanting more and more and more.  Twenty-seven is an age, after all that is old enough to be an adult, but still not old enough to understand the world. Although I am not sure that has happened to me yet, and I am 31.

For Amy Winehouse, the tragedy of being part of the Forever 27 Club means not having to slide into a vauge mediocre music choices to keep up with the wretched”singers” who would outsell her lovely, husky sound with computer generated vocals and gyrated movements with snakes and backup dancers.

In her death, she has left us with a small collection of music to take from — all beautiful, all tragic and all for us to keep our arms tight around.  From her two Cd’s she inspired a sound that made music a little better, if only for a little while.  Her sound brought out the funk and beat of a broken heart in a time when hipster, gothic, hang-yourself love songs were topping the charts, paving the way for singers like Adele, Cee Lo Green and Bruno Mars to get a little funky with broken hearts.

You can hear her fate in the song that made her a household name, “Rehab,” a smart, self-aware song about her struggle with going to get help for drinking, drugs and depression.  A fight she would essentially lose.

Winehouse sounded wise and wounded beyond her years. And like Cobain, Hendrix and Joplin, Amy Winehouse’s music had a sense of strength and purpose that she — and they — failed to summon in their own lives.

I hope when I get to the pearly gates one day, I am greeted by the “Forever 27’s”, heaven’s best band ever.  Well, either them…or the Beatles.

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The keyboardist, singer and harmonica player from The Grateful Dead died in 1973 from a stomach hemorrhage as a result of years of heavy drinking.

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Musician Barry McGuire’s Testimony: Eve of Destruction

When I was a little boy, my grandmother told me something I’ve never forgotten. I was probably about five, maybe six years old. She used to take care of me during the day when my mom worked. One day she said to me, ‘you know, Barry, one day when you grow up, you’re gonna know the truth, and the truth is gonna set you free.’ Now, I didn’t know that came out of the Bible. I didn’t even know there was a Bible. I was just a little kid. My grandmother told me that. And I knew she loved me, and boy, I knew I loved her. And when I grew up, sure enough, I wanted to be free. I mean who doesn’t want to be free? And certainly, a lie has never set anyone free. So if anything was gonna set me free, it had to be the truth.

Eve of Destruction was written by 19-year-old songwriter P. F. Sloan in 1965 and eventually became Barry McGuire’s one and only big Billboard chart hit song.

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And along came the 60s. And boy, I was the right age at the right time in the wrong place, you might say. And hey, I wanted to be free. Boy, I sang ‘Eve of Destruction’ lookin’ to be free. I went to Broadway. I did a show on Broadway called HAIR. I played the male lead in the original Broadway cast, lookin’ to be free. And the very lifestyle that we were promoting was killing us all. I looked around me I saw my friends, one, two, three at a time goin’ down: drug overdose, suicide, sexually transmitted diseases.

So I left Broadway, I came back out to California. And I was livin’ with a friend of mine, Denny Doherty, up on the Appian Way. And he used to joke and tease me, ’cause I was still lookin’ for truth, and every time a new teacher or sage or somebody, Meyer Baba, Sai Baba, Hadji Baba, any Baba would do, I mean I was down there in the front row, ya know, ‘Humna Baba, lay the truth on me, man!’ I was hummin’ and bobbin’ and goin’ for it. And Denny says, ‘Ah, you belong to the Guru of the Month Club.’ I mean, anybody, I didn’t care. If they had a word, I was down there tryin’ to learn the truth. And they said a lot of things that were true, but I just couldn’t somehow get it right inside of me.

And I was just about to give up, and one day I went over to a friend’s house, Eric Hord. He used to be the lead guitar player for The Mamas and Papas, and he always had a big bowl of marijuana under his coffee table. And man, I had this bowl out that morning; I had three papers glued together. I figured he’s only gonna lay one joint on me, so I’ll make the biggest one I can roll. And I look down on this particular day, there’s a little paper back book layin’ on the table next to the grass, and it’s called Good News for Modern Man. And I thought, ‘Hey, I’m a modern man. I could use some good news.’ I mean, everybody was dyin’ all around me. So I took the book home with me, didn’t know what it was. I got by myself, opened it up, and right on the first flyleaf page in the book it says, ‘The New Testament in Modern English.’ I got so angry. ‘Ah, look at this! Them Jesus Freaks, man! They’re diguisin’ the Bible!’ Threw it on the floor, I didn’t wanna read the Bible! Give me a break! And it laid there for days. I was hopin’ someone would come along and throw it away. I didn’t wanna throw it away, ’cause I knew what it was, the Bible, and just in case, you don’t wanna be responsible. Who knows? But it laid there for days, weeks, and months actually. I mean, when somethin’ hit the floor in my house; the next person to pick it up was an archaeologist. I mean, that was some future dig.

And I was there one day by myself. And there this little book somehow kept surfacing above the trash. And the wind was blowing through the window catching the pages. It was flickin’ its pages, flick, flick, flick, flick, flick. ‘Read me!’ it said to me. And truthfully, just out of bored, sarcastic curiosity, I picked up The Life and Times of Jesus Christ. And for the first time in my life, I stopped looking at Christians; I stopped looking at denominations, organizations, Catholics, Protestants, ya know, all this stuff that goes on in His name. And I took a look at Him, examined what He had to say. How He treated His personal friends. What He had to say to the people in the street, the alcoholics, the prostitutes, the homosexuals, the thieves, liars, and robbers. What he had to say about the military people, the political leaders, and the spiritual leaders (which is about the scariest thing he had to say to anybody). How He treated the little children when they came around. And everything that Jesus had to say, as I put it to the test against what I knew to be true through my own life experience, I couldn’t find anything wrong with His words. There’s no double meaning, no hidden agenda. It was all out front. And then He said thirteen words that changed my life, because I saw this was the answer to my personal eve of destruction. He said, ‘Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as your self.’

How simple can it get? And I realized that if all of us in the whole world lived according to those two simple instructions — I don’t care what your concept of God is, you could be a Buddhist, you could be B’hai, you could be, ya know, whatever it is, Christian, just your concept of God — love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as your self, and our world would change. How simple can it get? We wouldn’t need a police force anymore, and we wouldn’t need armies and navies and prisons and welfare systems. We wouldn’t need lawyers and politicians. Two simple pieces of instruction: Love God with all my heart, and love my neighbor as my self.

And I wanted to be like Jesus. I thought, ‘Man, this is my guy!’ But I didn’t wanna be a Christian, see. I wanted to be like Him, but I didn’t wanna be like all them. I thought if I said yes to Jesus I’d have to get a powder blue leisure suit — remember those? — White shoes, ya know, walk around smilin’ a lot. I couldn’t do that.

But then I wrestled with it for nearly a year. And one day I was up just off Mulholland Drive in Stone Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. And I’m bangin’ my head on the wall, my friends are all smokin’ dope, eating peyote, psilocybin, ya know, drinkin’ champagne and orange juice. And I’m over in the corner; I can’t have fun anymore. See, once you’ve been busted by the truth, you’ve been busted. You can’t fake it anymore. You can’t go around sayin’, ‘Well, who really knows?’ ‘Cause you really know. You don’t wanna know. But I knew. Jesus is the Lamb of God. His death paid my karmic debt. See, I had a debt I couldn’t pay. I had debt I could not pay. I mean, I’m a murderer, I’m a liar, I’m a thief, I’m everything you’re not supposed to be. I did it all. One time I was doing a newspaper interview, and the reporter said, ‘Well, what did you do?’ I said, ‘Well, ya know the Ten Commandments?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘I broke ’em. All of ’em. A lot.’

That’s what I did. And that’s what we all did. And there has to be justice. How could God not allow justice to be? He couldn’t just arbitrarily say, ‘that’s okay, Barry. You’re forgiven.’ And Jesus said, ‘I will go. I will satisfy the demands of justice on his behalf.’ And now the Bible says if I should stumble, if I should sin, it says God is faithful and just. You know what that justice cost? It cost Jesus’ life. And He did that for me, He did that for you, He did that for every person that’s gonna ever hear these words. So that I could be forgiven and truly, truly be free. That happened in 1971. I fell on my face on the floor of that house in Stone Canyon. I said, ‘God, I don’t know why, how; if I wake up alive tomorrow I’ll follow You wherever You lead me.’ And within a week I was on a Greyhound bus out of Hollywood, and I’ve never looked back, except in awe and wonder at how He revealed Himself to me in my state of mind at that time.”

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If you feel that your life feels incomplete or unsatisfying, please follow this link:
What is purpose of life?

Gary Thain (Uriah Heep)

The bassist from Uriah Heep is more or less the quintessence of the rock ‘n’ roll casualty. Known only to the band’s die-hard fans (and their families and loved ones), these guys neither burn out nor fade away; they merely get replaced in time for the next tour, the next session. Gary Thain was from New Zealand. He moved to London. He played with a band that opened for Uriah Heep. They asked him to replace their bass player. He did. They made some records, played some tours. Somewhere along the way he got addicted to heroin and got fired, replaced by someone else. He overdosed on December 8, 1975. As fate would have it, he was 27.
Today RockStar Weekly would like to pay tribute to Uriah Heep bassist Gary Thain, a member of rock’s 27 Club who passed away on this date (Dec. 8) in 1975. The 27 Club, also occasionally known as the Forever 27 Club or Club 27, is the name for a group of influential rock and blues musicians who all died at the age of 27, including such notables as Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain.

Early in 1972, Gary received a phone call from Ken Hensley and joined Uriah Heep as their 3rd bass player (replacing Mark Clarke). Heep was touring the USA at the time, Gary flew in to join the band and practiced the material he had to perform for several weeks.  His first gig with Uriah Heep was on February 1, 1972 at the Whiskey A Go-Go in Los Angeles, California.

The first album that Gary recorded with Uriah Heep was “Demons & Wizards” (released May 1972), only 4 months after he joined the band.  “The Magician’s Birthday” followed later that same year, and by that time Gary co-wrote some of the songs (Spider Woman and Sweet Lorraine).  The remastered edition (released 2003) also includes “Crystal Ball” and “Gary’s Song”, which he wrote during that time. (Gary’s Song being an alternate version of Crystal Ball).

Gary also toured with Uriah Heep almost non-stop.  In the beginning of 1973 the first collection of some of those touring efforts was released, aptly titled “Uriah Heep Live 1973”.  One of the points worth mentioning  is the excerpt of their Rock ‘N Roll Medley endings.  It shows Gary’s skill of using the 50’s and R ‘n R Bass lines that he had so diligently learned early on in his career.

All in all, he participated in over 140 live performances all over the world with Uriah Heep in just 3 years. After continued struggles with health and drug problems, Gary died of respiratory failure due to a heroin overdose on December 8, 1975, in his flat at Norwood Green at the young age of 27.

Enjoy this promo clip from 1972, Sweet Freedom, featuring the legendary Uriah Heep line up: David Byron, Mick Box, Ken Hensley, Gary Thain, Lee Kerslake

Lori’s Story: Unsatisfied and Depressed

I have had an amazing two years. About two years ago I graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and joined the family business. Just over a year ago I married a wonderful man. This past spring, my husband and I bought a fantastic house for the children we hoped to have in a few years. Just over a week ago I completed my master’s degree. Sounds like I should have been happy, right?

And yet I wasn’t. About six months ago, I realized that I had lost my purpose. What had really happened was that I had lost my joy.

I tried everything. In a session at the Monadnock women’s retreat a few weeks ago, the speaker, Linda Shultz Anderson, spoke about looking for happiness in all the wrong places. She described the Avis mode–if I only try harder, I’ll be happy. She also discussed the mall mode–if I only had this new pair of shoes, or in my case, this house, I’d be happy. Then there was the devastating leaning mode–somehow my family or friends should ensure my happiness. The reason that this was so destructive for me was that nobody, including myself, could even figure out what I had to be so depressed about, so what was it that I was expecting from them? In a nutshell, she had summarized the year and a half of my life leading up to my salvation.

Trying harder only made me tired. Buying more was fun for a while, and don’t get me wrong, I love our home. But it didn’t fill my emptiness. And trying to make other people responsible for my happiness only strained our relationships. I finally realized that I was tiring myself out trying too hard to achieve the things that mean success according to the society we live in. I just felt stressed out and tired. I started having brief fits of depression, where I would be completely devastated by anything that didn’t go my way. Then I would cry uncontrollably, because I didn’t know what I was so upset about and felt like I had lost control of my life. If I didn’t get any joy from the life I’d been living and the goals I’d achieved, then why was I doing it? And if none of these things could give me a fundamental purpose, then where was I possibly going to turn to find one? I felt like I had looked everywhere.

During one of my crying fits, my father made a very simple suggestion. So simple that it’s amazing to me that nobody else had suggested it, or that it hadn’t even crossed my mind. He said, “Why don’t you go to church with Beth this weekend and see if there’s something there that can help you with this?” I said, “Yeah, you know, it couldn’t hurt.”

Before I even got to church that weekend, my dad gave me some tapes of some of the Pastor’s sermons. There were two in particular that I’ll never forget, because they spoke right to my heart and my troubles. The first one was based on Philippians 3:12-14 and Philippians 4:11-13, where Paul talks about learning to always be content no matter what his material and worldly situation is. It became so clear to me that I had been chasing material goals and I needed to chase God instead. I could stop worrying so much about having a great car, house, and career, because He would take care of me if I’d only ask Him to.

The second sermon talked about Pontius Pilate and how he was troubled by Jesus because he knew that there was something extraordinary about this guy, but he shrugged it off and turned away his chance for salvation. This struck me, because God had caught my attention a few times over the past few years, and I had let my interest fade each time. I asked God not to let me slip away this time. Within two months I accepted Jesus as my personal savior and asked God into my life.

Since then, I’ve slowly been healed. I still mess up of course. I can still slip into having pity parties for myself, or find myself worrying about things instead of turning them over to God. But I can pull myself out of these modes because when I’m starting to fall by relying on a new source of joy in my salvation. I have a new feeling of purpose.

I have been amazed by the things that God has provided for me every time I’ve asked. This spring, He gave me those taped sermons. He has brought me back in touch with an old friend of mine, who accepted Christ in the last year and has been a great help in my young faith. I asked Him for some kind of bible study group because I feel like I need something structured to get me reading the bible on a regular basis. He brought me to a discipleship conference which really helped. I was driving to church a couple of weekends ago thinking that I needed a booster shot, and the Pastor’s sermon was “Do you need a fill-up?” Every time I’ve asked, He’s given.

So I thank God for my family; especially my husband. I also thank God for being stubborn with me this time, and showing me all the reasons I have to rejoice.

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If you are depressed or unsatisfied with life, please follow this link:
What is purpose of your life?

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What is the Purpose of Your Life?

Discovering Your Purpose In Life

Like most people, you may have wondered why you are here on Earth. Do you think your existence is an accident or are you here for a reason? Is there some purpose for your life? According to the Bible, you are not a mistake and you were created by God for a reason.

Created For A Reason

The main reason God created you is to make you part of His eternal plan (Romans 8:28-29). God wants us to be in Heaven with Him and to tell people about Him. His plan is for every person to be saved from their sin and Hell and to spend eternity with Him (2 Peter 3:9). Unfortunately, some people choose to live their own way and abandon God’s plan for their life (Proverbs 14:12).

What Are You Living For?

Most people seem to believe that the main purpose of life is enjoyment and personal fulfillment. Are you living for things such as money, fame, success, fun, possessions and power? The wise King Solomon accomplished many great things and had all that anyone could desire, yet described it all as meaningless (Ecclesiastes 1:2). How about you? Are you more consumed with the pleasures of life than what happens to your soul when you die? The Bible says “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul” (Mark 8:36)?

Life Is Short Compared To Eternity

Hopefully, you would agree that what happens to you eternally is far more important than what happens to you on Earth. Think about the word eternity. That is far beyond trillions and trillions times longer than our earthly life. It is so hard to even comprehend that concept because it never ends. You may have a great life or a terrible life on Earth, but either way it will come to an end someday. Then, you will spend everlasting life in either Heaven or Hell (Matthew 25:46). Please think carefully about where you will go after you die as it can happen any day.

The Problem

Too many people assume they will go to Heaven when they die based on their own concept of God. The reason why everybody can’t spend eternity in Heaven is because sin separates people from God (Isaiah 59:2). You have rebelled against God and committed a sin every time you broke one of God’s commandments by stealing something, telling a lie, hating somebody, disobeying your parents, having a lustful thought, or countless other things. God hates sin and will severely judge each and every one of your sins. Just being a good person or believing in God won’t erase your sin either. The Bible says that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

The Good News

The good news is that no matter how severe your sins are, God made a way for you to be forgiven and be declared innocent on judgment day. “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Being a good person or being religious won’t rescue you from your sin. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) The word grace means “undeserved favor”. Your sin separated you from a perfect and sinless God, but Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins and later rose back to life (Matthew 28:5-6) so you can have everlasting life in Heaven. Even though none of us deserve Heaven, God was kind enough to make a way for us.

Receiving Forgiveness

It is not enough to just believe that Jesus died for your sins. You must personally trust in Jesus to save you from the penalty of your sin (Romans 8:1-4). You must also be willing to repent (turn from) your sin (Luke 13:5) and follow Jesus as Lord of your life (Romans 10:9-10). Doing this mends your broken relationship with God and allows you access into Heaven.

Live For God

You were created to know God and to live for Him. That is why you exist. Only then does your life have the meaning and purpose God intended for you. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). To live your life for the glory of God means that you will love, obey, worship, please, and trust Him. This should not be a burden, but a pleasure because of what He means to you.

The Choice Is Yours

You never know how much time you have left on this Earth and nothing is more important than where you spend eternity. Hopefully, you will decide to follow Jesus so your life can be used to glorify God. Please make this choice right away, because after you die it will be too late.

Yes, I would like to know how I can become a follower of Christ
No thanks, I prefer to live life my own way

In one of his philosophical and melancholy musings Woody Allen once drily observed:

“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction.

Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

Does life have meaning? If life will end one day then why even go on? Woody Allen has no answers according to the video clip above.

With those thoughts in mind is it any wonder that the reviewer below notes, “That the film even attempts an affirmative, baseline existential conclusion, rather than embracing stasis and status quo ante, is to be commended.” Solomon had the answer to this nihilism and I have posted about that earlier.