{"id":2871,"date":"2010-08-07T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2010-08-07T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-10-10T19:26:53","modified_gmt":"2010-10-10T23:26:53","slug":"the-cigarette-in-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-cigarette-in-rock\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cigarette in Rock"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YGYps__KMzI?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>News of the once-smokiest Philadelphia rock club no longer putting on shows coupled with a catchy radio PSA rap from the Pennsylvania Department of Health on the need to show ID when buying cigarettes reminded me of the prominent role smoking &#8211; <em>cigarettes<\/em> &#8211; once played in rock &#8216;n roll.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nA few years ago, Philadelphia and its suburbs banned smoking in most bars. New York City did the same thing, right? I can&#8217;t remember the last time I had to suffer through a band&#8217;s set in a smoke-infested club. I don&#8217;t miss it, and it was no better when I was playing on stage to an audience of smokers. It&#8217;s hard enough for me to get close enough to my occasional harmony notes; choking on someone else&#8217;s cigarette smoke never helped. After a night out I had to go out to my garage and undress, leaving my clothes to air out a bit overnight. Yes, there&#8217;s a window in my garage and &#8211; sorry Townspeeps &#8211; smoke-free clubs in Philadelphia have spelled the end of the peep show!<\/p>\n<p><em>Do they still allow smoking in clubs in your neck of the woods?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is not meant to be an attack on smokers. For a brief time I smoked &#8211; <em>cigaretttes<\/em>. Like our friend Randy, I thought it was <em>cool<\/em>. Somewhere on Facebook an old friend posted a video of our band with me smoking on stage. It&#8217;s frightening to see now, but at the time I thought I was approaching cool. I hadn&#8217;t quite worked up to sticking the cigarette in-between the strings at my tuning heads, but don&#8217;t think I didn&#8217;t work on it in rehearsals.<\/p>\n<p><em>Do you mean to tell me that when the Stones play Philly that Keef can&#8217;t stick a ciggy in his tuning heads?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5yukTejx9Kc?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nDoes anyone know who the first onstage smoker in rock was? Big Band singers freely smoked, right? However, I don&#8217;t recall Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, or any of the other founding fathers of rock smoking &#8211; <em>cigarettes<\/em> &#8211; on stage, if they ever smoked at all.<\/p>\n<p>The Beatles smoked at press conferences right off the bat, but I don&#8217;t recall them smoking in concert footage I&#8217;ve seen. Does anyone even smoke during performances in <em>Let it Be<\/em>? I&#8217;m trying to recall if anyone smokes on stage at Woodstock or other festival-era films. I&#8217;m drawing blanks. <strong>Leonard Cohen<\/strong> likely had an onstage smoke at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Zqu3U05tkAw\" target=\"_blank\">his 1970 Isle of Wight performance<\/a>, but I don&#8217;t have the patience to sit through more than two clips.<\/p>\n<p><em>When did Keef, the most notorious bad boy of rock, begin the practice of smoking on stage?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s been your relationship with smoking &#8211; <em>cigarettes<\/em> &#8211; and rock &#8216;n roll? Ever smoked on stage? Have a favorite smoking rocker? Ever lit the cigarette of a rocker on stage and in need of fire?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News of the once-smokiest Philadelphia rock club no longer putting on shows coupled with a catchy radio PSA rap from the Pennsylvania Department of Health on the need to show ID when buying cigarettes reminded me of the prominent role smoking &#8211; cigarettes &#8211; once played in rock &#8216;n roll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}