Art and Music as Brain Conductivity

by Pete Holly

In hard times the first thing that School Systems
cut are the arts and especially Music.They do this because they percieve
that these classes are unnessasary.They do this because they are unaware
of the vital role that Art and Music play in creating better student's.
Thousands of tests all show the same result.Students who are
exposed to Art and music learn much more rapidly than those who
have been givin' no art or music instruction.The quickist way to way
to reduce the percentage of students who do well in thier studies is
to eliminate Arts and Music from the curiculum.
This fact is based on decades of testing and study and every time
the students who had Art and music available to them did better in all
thier studies than those who did not !
Why is it that Art and music play such a vital role in getting the most
Students to excell ?
It's appears that art and music activate brain activity more than
every other subject combined.MIR scans show that it is only art and
music that light up every part of the human Brain.
Why is it that only art and music can activate the brain so completely?
One reason i believe is that a painting or a Great piece of music are both
very complex and so it takes all of the Brain's power to decipher either
one.{i.e. it's not like mowing the lawn or taking out the garbage}
So i guess you could say that Art and Music act as lightswitch's
for the Brain.When the light switch is turned on we see an incredibly
complex world-seemingly infinatly complex.When the light swith is
turned off-we see very little but darkness all around.We never learn
how to understand complex idea's and so the world makes little sense
to us;and eventually we give up trying.

Written by Pete Holly-2010-copyright-all rights reserved

The Proverbial Stuck on a Desert Island CD list

To be honest-i could write thousands of these lists,but,i decided i would just
write down the first 25 cd's that popped-up in my mind.

written by Pete Holly

1."Revolver"-The Beatles
2."Mott"-Mott the Hoople
3."Runt,The Balled of Todd Rundgren"-Todd Rundgren
4."Who's Next"-The Who
5."Today"-The Beach Boy's
6."California Day's and Nights"-The Beach Boy's
7."Court and Spark"-Joni Mitchell
8."Live at Leeds"-The Who
9."Rubber Soul"-The Beatles
10."Sincerely"-Dwight Twilly Band
11."Quadraphenia"-The Who
12."Tim Moore"-Tim Moore
13."Please Please Me"-The Beatles
14."Born to Run"-Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
15."Born in the U.S.A.-Bruce Springsteen
16."Laura Nyro's First"-Laura Nyro
17."Let it Be"-The Beatles
18."Countdown to Extasy"-Steely Dan
19."Can't Buy a Thrill"-Steely Dan
20."Something/Anything-Todd Rundgren
21."Autobahn"-Kraftwork
22."The Who Sell Out"-The Who
23."The Best of John Coltrane{Atlantic}-John Coltrane
24."The Balled of Todd Rundgren"-Todd Rundgren
25."Todd"-Todd Rundgren


Written by Pete Holly

"The Look's" Never Were A Garage Band

by Pete Holly

"The Look's" never were a garage band.Our biggest audience at
the peak of our popularity here in Boise,were Jr. High and High School Students.
To them we were just a Rock' n Roll Band.Nobody ever called the music we played
Garage Band music,Frankly,because we didn't play any garage band songs.Unlike
All the other bands on The Voxx Album-"The Battle of the Garages" our song
wasn't a remake of a old Garage Band song and the style of the song owes alot
more to Devo,Television and The Clash.Those were the bands that inspired
me to write "Look Out Below"not any old 60's Garage Band.Our song got put
on the album completely by accident.We didn't know anything about the
Contest.We were just sending out the Demo tape we'd made to all sorts of
Label's and our Drummer-Lenny Montoya suggested we send one to Bomp.
I'd never heard of Bomp but Lenny grew up in East L.A. so he was familiar
the label,Lenny knew alot of things about L. A. that Mitch and i didn't so i
just said O.K.-If Lenny thinks it's a good idea to send a copy of our demo
To this Label in L.A.-He knows alot more about L.A. than i do so i just took
him at his word that it was a good label to send our demo to-and so we did.
So that's how we got labeled as a garage band.Because "Look Out
Below' got chosen by Greg Shaw to be on the Album.It was the first time we'd
ever been called a garage band.The Demo also had "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"
on it.The first time i called Greg he said "Pete Holly amd the Look's ? "Oh Yeah,
your the band with the Merseybeat Song".That's when i talked Greg into letting
us record a single.I think Greg knew all along that we really weren't like any of the
other bands on "The Battle of the Garages".The Demo tape we'd sent to him had
three original songs on it.I wrote,arranged and Produced all three of them and
none of them were garage band songs.The style of the songs on the Demo tape
were the style of my own that i'd developed over 10 years of songwriting.My
Biggest influences were Mott the Hoople,The Beatles,The Who,Bob Dylan,
Todd Rundgren,and The Beach Boys.
We were the only band that Greg put on both "The Battle Of Garages"
and the compilation album "Expieriments in Destiny" which contained recordings
that sounded more modern.He put the version i had produced on the "Battle" album
and he put the studio version on "Expieriments in Destiny".So i believe Greg knew
all along that we were a band that could play many differant styles-because we were.
The only label he ever put on my music was when he wrote me a letter and it said
i still had that "cool sound".
So that's the true version of what really happened and who our infuences
really were.What can i say-things just happened the way they happened.I was
allways just trying to write the best songs i could.I didn't have any control-and
i still don't-over what label gets put on them.

Written by Pete Holly

Poetry

by Pete Holly

We are born innocent-
but don't long stay that way,
We climb higher Mountains,
and some times lose our way-

A Shepard to guide us-
for we often get lost-
that's reason's cavelery,
to find the holy spirit within'-

Once what was so easy to see-
For now-we are blinded-
In one eye at least-the other see's much-
thou - slanted like a tree,

So here i am,
with one good eye,
I can still sail the sea's-
and can wisper to my uncharted love-
I sail fast above,
Sail on forever
-'tis Easter



Written by Pete Holly-copyright-2010-all rights reserved

A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE

Before i ever had a band,i had been playing guitar for many,many years.By the time i
was 17 i'd been playing guitar for 6 years.I played alot when i was younger.No one ever had
to tell me to practice.I would just start playing guitar and before i knew it hours had past.
For 6 years i would practice,but i didn't think of it as practicing for at least several hours
a day and some times longer.I didn't just play the guitar-i would get so into the music
that i literally forgot about everything else.I also was writing songs at this time.In fact
from the very begining of my guitar playing i was allready making up original songs.
For nearly all of my early guitar playing day's and certainly for all the original songs
i made up-I played in a finger picking style with a thumb-pick.Because of all those years
of finger picking i am still pretty good at it today.I only learned to play with flat pick
many years after these early day's when i first realy learned to play guitar.I also practiced
scales endlessly.I got really good at it and i was fast.One reason i'm telling you all this is
because many of the musicians that formed Punk rock bands only had very rudimentry
skills as musicians.This was not the case however with me.By the time the first incarnations
of what would eventually become "Pete Holly and the Look's" started forming i had all-
ready been playing around Boise as solo acoustic act for several years.
There were many reasons i didn't stay a strictly solo act and started forming
bands.One of the main reasons was it was around this time that the singer-songwriter
movement lost it's popularity.Record labels were no longer signing acoustic solo acts.
Believe it or not-one of the last successful singer-songwriters to be signed to a major
label was John Couger Mellencamp known then as "Johnny Cougar".Two of the other
last one's were Willie Nile and Steve Forbet.Both came out of the starting gate strong
with Steve Forbert even scoring a big hit with "Romeo's Tune".But Forbert failed
to ever score another hit and as talented as Willie Nile was-he didn't breakthrough
to the mainstream. and both of them eventually faded into obscurity.I loved Steve
Forberts first album "Alive on Arrival".I used to listin to it alot even after we formed
"The Look's" but the writing on the wall was easy to see.The Heyday of singer-songeriters
was over-history.So as much as i had wanted to be a singer-songwriter and didn't
really want to start a band-because the singer-songwriter movement had come to an end-
I ended up starting "The Look's".
That's one of the reason's why "The Look's" had a sound that was hard to pin down.
The band was really just a vehicle for "souped-up" versions of the songs i'd written on
acoustic guitar.All of them.For the most part-I have never written even one song on
an electric guitar;the instrumental "Pete's Naima" is the lone exception.
And that's the way it's allway's been for me.Behind all the labels people have put
on me and on "Pete Holly and the Look's".The catagory that the greatist majority of
my songs and the song's we played in "The Look's" really belongs in is singer-songwriter.


written by Pete Holly-2010-copyright-all rights reserved

DECISION-MAKING IS THE GREAT ISSUE

Deal me in,man.Damn it,deal me in.







from Malcom Boyd's "Book of Day's"

Musical Secrets

by Pete Holly

#1."Battle of the Garges"-original "12" inch vinyl release in 1981.
If you look really hard you can see etched into the vinyl after the
last song-"Sky Saxon Live's".Sky Saxon was the lead Singer and
songwriter of the legendary Garage Band "The Seed's".The
Seeds best known song,"Pushin' to Hard" is one of several classic garage band songs that appear as cover versions on the album.
{source-Greg Shaw-the man who put Bomp on the map}

#2."Paperback Writer"-The Beatles-If you listen carefully to
the background vocals by John and George they aren't singing
about a "Paperback Writer".Instead they intone the french
nursery rhyme "phar-ah-jauqe-ah".Some how it work's !

#3."Day Tripper"-The Beatle's-More Beatles mischief as the line
that was originally written as "She's a Big Teaser" become's
"She's a Prick Teaser".Boy's will be Boy's.

#4.The song that won Johnny Rotten the lead-singer spot in the
Sex Pistols was a spontanous and spitited version of Alice Cooper's
"I'm Eighteen".

#5.The Rolling Stones and The Beatles got along famously.All of the
Good Boy/Bad Boy rivalry was complete fiction made up by The
Stones Manager-Andrew Long Oldham.

But wait a minute-Andrew Long Oldham also was the most vocal
oponent of the English Music Trade Papers trashing of The Beach Boy's
Landmark album "Pet Sounds".He went so far as to take out a very
expensive full page ad in "The London Time's"-proclaiming "Pet Sounds"
as the Greatist record of all time and that all the critics were idiots
who didn't know a true work of genuis when they heard it.Paul McCart-
ney also expressed his fondness and amazment at the extremly
creative use of sound on the Record.

History Never Repeats

by Pete Holly

Without actually coming out and saying it-writers who are not proffesional
historians,archeologists,geologists,astronomers or astro-physisists make state-
ments,mostly on television,but also in books,and of coarse on the internet that
try to convince a person of average intelligence that,in essence,Homo Sapien
Sapiens{the human species}don't and never have had the abilility to come up
idea's,using only the power of thier human brains,complex and powerful
enough to 1.Build the Great Pyramid{s} 2.Move incredibly large and heavy
Stones {stonehenge,Numerous sites in south america,the easter island statues etc.}
3.Have a great understanding of the Star's and thier movements and the ability
to use that information to create exremely accurate calenders and and other
extremly accurate time accounting systems.Yet,if you keep up with all the
latest archeological and scientific discoveries not only have scientists been
able to figure at least one way that out ancient ancestor's could have achieved
all these great accomplishments but in many case's they have figured out two,
or three differant way's which the ancients could have divised techniques,
systems and even built{thou crude by today's standards}machines that could
perform any task that would have needed to create all of the physical wonders
of the ancient world that either we have knowledge of or that still exist today. Since electric light wasn't made available to the mass public until the 20th
century it is not surprising at all that are ancient ancestors had such a vast
and amazing understanding of the star's movements since at night the star's
in ancient day's would have appeared to our ancestors as an amazing world
of a signifacnce.Of coarse it makes perfect sense that they studied it relentlessly
until they had it figured out right down to literally a fraction of a second.
Part of the reason we misunderstand the amount of intelligence
ancient civilizations possessed is because the secrets to unlocking it were destroyed.
The Library at Alexandria in Egypt being burned to the ground was without
a doubt the single largest loss of ancient knowledge that has ever occured.
The Burning of the Aztecs Codex by the Spanish Conquistadors coming in at
a close second.
But Some wiser minds saw these disasters coming and were able to remove
or otherwise hide and so preserve some of the documents of our ancient ancestor's
Amazing technical knowledge,Art,Understanding of the cosmos,the human mind,
advanced mathmatics and medicine{understanding of the Human Body}.
It is because of the forsight of a few individuals that we know just how advanced
in intelligence and technology our ancestors were.Armed with this incredible
amount of knowledge that we now know,even the earliest civilizations possessed.
It is not difficult to understand how The Wonders of the Ancient World were
designed and created by brains identical to our own.


written by Pete Holly-2010-copyright-all rights reserved