Category: Classic Rock

This image takes the original Black & White theme for this artwork, and look I have added all those colors.  I discussed before that when I think of this music I remember my life back than in mostly black and white.  Also, in the sixties, to be in tune with the times, I wore bell bottom  blue jeans, own a number of Navy pea coats, liked corduroy browns, and in general wore a lot of dull solid colors.  For those reasons, that is why I chose shades of gray to black to dominate this artwork, while using blues and browns for accent.  When I looked at the words for this artwork, without at first knowing the why, I knew I did not want to paint them in any dull colors or shade of gray.  I felt that none of those colors represented the lyrics of this music.  That is when I understood, what my feelings about this music,  where all about.

I remember the joy of listening to Satisfaction when it was new,  and sixty years later the Rolling Stones are still playing it. The words are still as exciting to sing today as they where when I was listening to them on AM radio,  in my best friend Tom’s Volkswagen Beetle, on a cold winter’s night as he drove us to the local dance bar, The Airway.  His car heater, barely kept us warm, and defrosted the windshield enough to see as long as we had our noses to the glass  But we did not care, for we where into music and into drinking a few beers on live band Wednesday.  That than was all what mattered.

Putting all of that into perspective,  I chose four of many Psychedelic colors, unknown to me back then, for the words because of their vibrancy and later dramatic effect on fashion. This artwork remembers, in its colors,  a distant music memory, that lives on today as one of music’s greatest, long-lasting Rock songs,  Satisfaction.

Scott Von Holzen

Satisfaction is finally here. This is the first image of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, on two canvas 50 inches in length by 20 inches in height.  My first contact with the Rolling Stones was  one of their early albums from 1965 that my brother bought: December’s Children.  On this album where two memorable songs, for me, As Tears go By, and Get Off my Cloud. That turned out to be the last Rolling Stones album I held in my hand.  As I have mentioned, I was a Beatles fan in the sixties.

Today,  I have almost 100 Rolling Stones songs in my music collection which at first, made it difficult to choose the first song to paint.  Actually, it turned out to be easy for I a choose my most memorable Rolling Stones song: Satisfaction.  I remember listening a lot to Satisfaction as a Junior in High School. It was the perfect teenage bad boy, hello girls, anthem for our time.

Here is the 1965 video of Satisfaction, released the same year,  on the album out of our heads:

After picking Satisfaction I checked out a lot of videos of the Rolling Stones performing Satisfaction all in color. Boy do these guys look old, and wow I just could not relate to any of those videos. Then I ran across an early video version of Satisfaction. Watching the video It was like flashing back to my youth. I could see myself and my high school buddies all in black and white. I then took the color plan for this painting from this black and white video. What really sold me on this video was watching Mick Jagger dance around in his strip pants.  I took the vertical pattern in his pants and used it in my background of this first image.

Growing up in the late fifties and early sixties, I lived in black and white world. I grew up with Howdy Doody on black and white television. The movies I use to watch at the out-door theater in Arpin where black & white. I remember that The Creature from the Black Lagoon, scared the hell out of me for many nights.  I also grew up with black and white photography.  Even in school all of my teachers used white chalk on black boards,  and in high school the Catholic nuns all wore the traditional black and white robes. It was a black and white world back than.  Even today when I think back to those days,  there where colors in my life, especially in the late sixties, but in my high school years, looking back I am comfortable seeing my friends, my brothers, my parents, and my so-called Life all in black and white.

Scott Von Holzen