The Dark Side of Classic Rock Values.
Rock and Roll will never die. It shambles on and on over the terrestrial airwaves and streams into our homes, cars, and deserted shopping malls. Sometime in the late 60’s recording technology reached a level of sophistication to produce the harmoniously integrated frequencies that would justify rock music’s jump from the tin can AM sound of the single mono speaker in the dashboard of my uncle’s truck, to the FM experience of sitting rapt with a pair of headphones (or my head lain between two speakers) hypnotized by life-like and beyond life-like stereo imaging. Freeform and Progressive radio stations were coopted by commercial interests once enough FM radios were sold and the acceptable compromise of AOR Radio is born.
But rock music still promised unbounded horizons. Unbridleable energy. Operas, tone-poems, sophisticated appropriation of folk themes. Greater experimentation, crazier and crazier ideas!
Music is a bottomless well of possibilities. Rock music was big, seething, electric sex-tent of generational energy. Even more importantly, a swooning, depthless sea of profit.
And then, following this breathtaking expansion, Rock withered and blackened into a hard little creosote lump of conservatism. As Rock journeys through the 70s it increasingly must conform to specific instrumentation, tempo, time signature.
The pop and rock explosion of the 50s and 60s exposed black music to a wider audience, but AOR Radio only likes the honky version of stuff. (Bob Marley was shrewd enough to recognize this, cut out the middle man, dialed back the bass and drums, and made his own sanitized, radio friendly version of Reggae. Smart dude!)
Rock portrays a shirtless, hyper-masculinized landscape of he-men or willowy androgynous white guys. Women are almost never heard from and when they are it is because they imbibe the tired tropes of Rock music. You won’t see a more integrated approach until punk rock.
What was Rock’s reply to punk? Retrenchment. A drooling afternoon nap of complacency that would give birth the likes of Van Halen, Loverboy and the abominable Night Ranger. Shit, even Cheap Trick (they’re kinda punky) are pretty goddamn tame. Who here is proposing a radical critique of art and living and society? “Disco Sucks,” comes the reply.
In 1980, in Cleveland Ohio the radio station M105 proclaimed itself Cleveland’s Classic Rock. Classic Rock would narrow the scope of the AOR format even further. Faced with the energy and freshness of New Wave pop, and possible extinction, Classic Rock Radio tried restore Rock music to supremacy and greatness.
You know who else came along in 1980 promising to restore greatness?
I’m sorry I put Reagan on your screen. It had to be done. The only way to punish me is to donate to the fund that’s split between all eventual
Democratic nominees in House districts currently held by Republicans.
cleek
Women are almost never heard from and when they are it is because they imbibe the tired tropes of Rock music.
Ob: Heart
Frankensteinbeck
Does ‘uncategorized’ count as an open thread? Screw it, I’ll repost here and consider it done.
I just finished reading the Kalevala, Finland’s national oral tradition mythology epic. It was… different. Other epics are bloodbaths of gore and tragedy and genealogy. In Finland you get instruction manuals of basic civilization skills, a whole lot of sleeping around, wizards desperate to marry, and all the terrible conflicts are solved by lessons in friendship. It is a season of My Little Pony, not the Prose Edda or Song of Roland.
I live tweeted it, so I’ll throw in a link for those who want longer silly commentary. I give you the Twilight Sparkle of the Gods!
Stan
One needn’t look far.
Gang of Four
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPJHQmJAiKA
Or
Joy Division
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1Vpz7_dchY
Or
The Clash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ82BX0hGBM
waspuppet
What is the role of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock n Roll” in this? I remember hearing that as a teenager and thinking:
1) This is the opposite of what rock & roll is supposed to be about; and
2) This doesn’t come within a half-mile of a groove of any sort.
raven
Last time we had a disco sucks conversation motherfuckers for all “oh that’s racist and homophobic”! Fuck you, disco sucked. (I actually like some of it now)!
Stan
Right, like Patti Smith, who is the mother of so many great bands aside from being phenomenal herself.
Yutsano
@Stan: Joan Jett. Pat Benetar. That’s just off the top of my head*.
*Would mention Ann & Nancy Wilson but they’re name dropped in comment 1.
Ridnik Chrome
You know, I was going to give you a thumbs-up for quoting the Mekons, but then I read the post. AOR radio and “rock” (however you want to define it) are not the same thing, and it’s unfair to equate the two. I’m really goddamned sick of seeing artists being blamed for shit that A&R and marketing people do.
Jewish Steel
@Frankensteinbeck: You should consider all of my posts open threads.
@waspuppet: Exactly! It’s some dressed up Sha Na Na.
raven
Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin Tribute): Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson –
LAO
I see it is in an open thread, I’m not sure why, but I can’t shake the feeling that Sessions is toast. I think Sessions is going to fire McCabe on Friday to screw him out of his 21 year pension and then Trump’s going to “tweet fire” Sessions next week.
ETA:
Jewish Steel
@raven: I was a Disco Sucks-ist too.
@Stan: @Yutsano: So that was typical? Women led rock bands? (Patti Smith is hardly classic rock anyway)
raven
@raven: Complete with Barak, Michelle and a choir of thousands. . . .!
SmokeyB
Tina Turner. Chrissie Hynde. Annie Lennox.
raven
@Jewish Steel: Yea, there is a lot of it that is pretty good in retrospect, good beat and you can dance to it.
patroclus
@raven: I dare you to watch The Full Monty and The Martian and not chuckle at Hot Stuff.
raven
Chrissie and the Pretenders kill Private Life
germy
raven
@patroclus: Loved in in the Martian. Iaso really like Hues Corporation – Rock The Boat
Jewish Steel
@SmokeyB:
’60s/’80s rock. Punk rock. New wave. No classic rockers here.
Cacti
@waspuppet:
Bob Seger’s other great crime against the genre was mentoring a young Glenn Frey, and being midwife to the birth of The Eagles.
Ridnik Chrome
@Jewish Steel:
There is no such musical genre as “classic rock”. It’s a term that was made up by marketing people. But if there is such a thing as a canon in rock music, then Patti Smith is most definitely part of it.
raven
And don’t forget the Mary Jane, Girls In my house
Jewish Steel
@raven: John Lennon’s statement that the Beatles music was primarily designed to make you dance has been my guiding light since I read it.
GeriUpNorth
@Yutsano: Also Courtney Love, Chrissie Hynde, and Lita Ford off the top of my head.
raven
@Cacti: Ah yes but there was The System! Leanin on My Dream
Greeting from the president
United States, I fell down on my knees!
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: I was told Linda Ronstadt was to blame for The Eagles. ?
Mary G
@LAO: That is vindictive bullshit. Can he sue?
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
How soon can we import them here?
raven
Can’t Find My Way Home – Bonnie Raitt & Lowell George & John Hammond Jr & Freebo
p.a.
Quiz: author, and next line. (If you use intertubes, admit it)
marduk
Counterpoint, with a new release: Kim Deal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i76b0OrdIQ
Yutsano
@Jewish Steel: You leaving off Janis for some reason?
@GeriUpNorth: Holy cwap totally forgot about Lita Ford! Man her song was considered racy af when I was in high school.
SmokeyB
@Jewish Steel: Those girls could rock your classic rock socks off man.
Cacti
@Betty Cracker:
Seger mentored Frey in the music business when he was a pup in Michigan. Ronstadt came later after he’d moved to California.
raven
@Betty Cracker: And that asshole IRVING AZOFF.
Ridnik Chrome
@GeriUpNorth: Siouxsie Sioux, Debbie Harry, Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, the Ronettes, the Shangri-Las, Big Mama Thornton. There have been women in rock and roll as long as there’s been rock and roll.
Lapassionara
@LAO: What an evil MF. I hope McCabe takes him to litigation hell.
germy
– Frank Sinatra
Mnemosyne
@Stan:
I think you missed JS’s point — he’s talking about the “classic rock” entrenchment that was a reaction against those very bands.
TenguPhule
Christina Hagan, unapologetic Republican Trump supporter. Wants to be the female representative to change the makeup of the all male delegation of Republicans from Ohio after being inspired by the 2016 election.
/via Wapo
SMH so fucking hard right now.
LAO
@Mary G: No. I think McCabe’s only recourse is to appeal to the Attorney General. Otherwise known as the guy who approved of his firing.
patroclus
@Jewish Steel: #9 was the most danceable hit ever!!
(And I could dance to Yoko’s shrieking all day!)
Haydnseek
@Stan: No shit. And Joni Mitchell, who should be revered as a Living National Treasure.
burnspbesq
@Jewish Steel:
It doesn’t have to be typical to be important.
Sleater-Kinney is important. The Breeders are important. The Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, X, and Sonic Youth, all of which had key women members, are undeniably important.
Oh, and I almost forgot Blondie.
You should educate yourself before pontificating.
Mnemosyne
@Ridnik Chrome:
Seriously, did everyone miss his point that this is a historical article about a specific inflection point in the late 70s and early 80s?
Siouxsie Sioux — New Wave
Debbie Harry — New Wave
Janis Joplin — already dead
Grace Slick — “We Built This City”
the Ronettes — 15 years earlier
the Shangri-Las — 15 years earlier
Big Mama Thornton — 30 years earlier
burnspbesq
@LAO:
Merit Systems Protection Board?
geg6
The greatest AOR station ever was WMMS in Cleveland. First heard Roxy Music and Mott the Hoople on that station. The heyday was from the early 70s to the mid-to late 80s. A really brilliant station with great on air talent. Although I’m from Pittsburgh and we disdain most things Cleveland, WMMS was the station we envied but did not have in the ‘Burgh. I got to hear it a lot in those years because that’s when my oldest sister first got ill with and finally got diagnosed and treated for Crohn’s disease. Few doctors or hospitals in Pittsburgh knew much about Crohn’s back in 1972-73, but the world’s expert was at the Cleveland Clinic and the family was traveling to Cleveland and back for surgeries and check ups for the next few years. WMMS- Weed Makes Me Smile!
Mnemosyne
@burnspbesq:
He’s not saying they’re unimportant. He’s making a point about a VERY SPECIFIC HISTORICAL MOMENT that either excluded those bands or happened before they came along.
Jaysus, people. “Disco sucks” didn’t clue you in to the time period being discussed?
germy
Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
In his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Johnny Cash said that she was his favorite singer growing up. Little Richard called her his greatest influence. Chuck Berry said that his entire career was just “one long Rosetta Tharpe impersonation.”
Jewish Steel
@Ridnik Chrome: “New Wave” was also invented by a marketing department to sell punk rock to middle Americans. But you know what? It does a good job describing all kinds of pop-rock that isn’t really very punk.
James E. Powell
@Ridnik Chrome:
Me too. And I’ve been a obsessed music freak since I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and told my mother I wanted a guitar for my birthday. I listened to AM radio, then the odd late-night FM shows like Perlich Project, then FM progressive, AOR, CHR, and whatever came after that. I listened to it all, but I never came close to relying on it to play music that I liked or that I found interesting. I mean, sometimes they did and that was cool, but I didn’t expect it or think it was necessary.
I’m a little jealous of Da Kids Today because they have so much easy access to so much music, but I also think they are missing something because they aren’t seeing as much live because concert tickets are insane (I saw the Stones with Stevie Wonder opening for like six bucks when that was an easy amount of cash for a kid to have). I also think there is something missed from the independent record stores where you could hang out and listen to stuff and argue about it with you similarly obsessed friends.
Jewish Steel
@Betty Cracker: I fell in love with my wife when I saw her singing “Different Drum” at a Karaoke bar.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
The 2016 election inspired a lot of white supremacists. That’s half of what we’re battling right now.
Ridnik Chrome
@Mnemosyne: That entrenchment was the work of radio programmers and marketing people, not musicians. Rock music was alive and doing just fine after 1980. Rock radio, on the other hand, went totally to hell. But the two things are not the same.
James E. Powell
@Jewish Steel:
“Because the Night” is a classic rock staple.
joel hanes
Bonnie Raitt
Joni Mitchell
Jewish Steel
@p.a.: Isn’t that a line from Amadeus?
trollhattan
@Haydnseek:
Got to believe Canada already does. Not that I disagree or anything–her catalog is second only to Dylan in its depth and breadth.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
A period during which Talking Heads, X, and Sonic Youth were active and influential. And during which the Go-Gos, the Bangles, and the Runaways got massive airplay and sold shitloads of records. And during which Linda Ronstadt was still selling out arenas. Emmylou Harris, though undeniably a country artist, had a huge following among rock fans.
Any analysis that attempts to downplay the importance of women in rock is misogynistic or ignorant or both.
joel hanes
@raven:
thank you
Mnemosyne
@Ridnik Chrome:
And Siouxsie and the Banshees couldn’t get played on those stations for love or money. Which seems to have been his point.
joel hanes
Grace Slick
Jewish Steel
@Yutsano: For every woman in rock you name I can name 1000 men. Where did I ever say there were no women in rock?
Death Panel Truck
@patroclus: You won’t get through five minutes of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_ScyKztGA0" "Cambridge 1969" without wanting to shoot yourself dead. :-)
burnspbesq
@geg6:
Metromedia ran the three best rock stations that ever existed: WNEW-FM in New York, WMMR in Philly, and WMMS in Cleveland.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, I’m so old that I remember when women couldn’t get hired as radio deejays because their voices weren’t authoritative enough (at least in Chicago). That’s another thing that MTV probably helped change nationwide.
hellslittlestangel
As I recall, the promise of fucking rock operas was that “rock” was about to get even shittier and even more pretentious.
Jewish Steel
@SmokeyB: No doubt!
@germy: That is one of my all-time favorite quotes.
germy
@burnspbesq: Alison Steele, the Nightbird!
Jewish Steel
@Mnemosyne: I think a lot of people have missed that. Mea culpa, I guess.
Ridnik Chrome
@Jewish Steel:
You’re making the mistake of trying to separate things into neat little categories, but art doesn’t work that way. Blondie, Television, Talking Heads and the Ramones were all part of the same scene that birthed punk and new wave. It was only later on that people started having arguments about what was and wasn’t “punk”, and frankly those kinds of arguments are a huge waste of time. It’s all rock and roll, as far as I’m concerned.
p.a.
@Jewish Steel: Maybe, but the song predates it. Although if it’s an actual Mozart quote, that would predate the song.
ETA: Too busy to read entire thread, but has anyone mentioned Janis?
raven
@Mnemosyne: You can’t think of anything better for Grace that that shit? Try Lather.
Mnemosyne
@burnspbesq:
That didn’t happen until the mid-80s.
Seriously, I didn’t realize that it was now conventional wisdom that there was no problem with radio in the late 70s/early 80s and new bands were getting tons of airplay right alongside the Eagles.
I actually remember those days, and you are clearly remembering them wrong. MTV helped break the logjam, and there was a major logjam for punk and New Wave music getting airplay.
Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog
@Frankensteinbeck:
Wonderful and hilarious thread!
eclare
@raven: Not my favorite song, but loved seeing Barack and Michelle there. And that was a great tribute, except for Kid Rock singing (screeching) Ramble On.
scav
There’s also something to be mined from the distribution of women in the bands — usually about one, often doing the singing and being pretty and cover-friendly. Not widely integrated into the team, twanging instruments.
raven
Or Jefferson Airplane – House at Pooneil Corners (In a New York roof 1968)
Jewish Steel
@patroclus: Hey! You’ve got to give the artists some room breathe. Paul’s Carnival of Light from the year before actually has some groovy parts.
chopper
@LAO:
how the hell would firing him cost his pension? at most it would shave a year off the length of service.
mai naem mobile
@LAO: I find it hard to believe you lose your whole pension after 22 years. Maybe not get all the full retirement package but not lose it all. Also, I have a feeling McCabe can be hired back by a Democratic admin for a couple of months and get the whole package if he doesn’t take it now. If Sessions fucking does it I hope he gets his just desserts because that is a shitty shitty thing to do that only a total asshole would pull.
Mnemosyne
@scav:
Again, I’m so old that I remember it was a huge deal that the Go-Gos was an all-girl band! That played their own instruments and shit!
It was a huge deal at the time.
germy
raven
Airplane Wooden Ships, Grace smokes it.
? Martin
@LAO: That’s completely illegal. The only way for a federal employee to lose their pension benefits is to be convicted of a crime as listed under 5 USC section 8312. If McCabe is fired prior to his March 18 date, he would be eligible to retroactively retire on the date of his termination. That’s all handled inside of GSA. The only way Sessions gets a say is to convict McCabe of one of those crimes. Good luck there.
It still may be vindictive shit, but it has negligible actual effect on McCabe.
germy
@Mnemosyne:
I remember that too, and it really bugged me, because rock journalists have such short memories.
In the early ’70s, Fanny was an all-female band who wrote their own songs and played their instruments. Hard rockers who were often better than the all-male bands they opened for.
EZSmirkzz
Fanny has a new album out this month, first in forty years, and the tune “Lured Away” is just as cutting as “Butter Boy” was in its’ day. Fanny was to my memory the first all female Rock and effing Roll band, paving the way for many of the female rockers mentioned in previous comments.
I think we need to look at the decline of jazz and other genres as a natural aging of the form, just as the youngsters that pushed rock n roll to topper most with the popper most, ( old Berlin Beatles saying,) aged and had less time and money and more kids and worries to deal with. Still, Glenn Miller’s Blueberry Hill was a huge hit for Fats Domino which never quite made into a heavy metal tune.
It’s OK to put music into a box set, but I think we make a mistake when we try and put any artist’s work into a genre box, because the art and work of creating a tune are a working out of something inside the creator, and the particular genre influences the work without necessarily defining it. There’s a lot of jazz in rock n roll, especially as it morphed and matured, but there’s still violins that Mozart would have been comfortable with in it too.
Humans like to categorize and organize everything into stackable mental rail cars to ship and store in their mental warehouses, which is a disservice to music that has floated ex nihilo, or fallen off of the moon, into an artist’s head. We define and warehouse it in our heads, and if a million others warehouse it in the same way and place in their heads it’s a hit.
Along those lines, I would hope everyone could take beauty, in what ever form it presents itself, and accept it as a gift of consciousness, that its’ value exceeds its’ worth, as it enriches us all with no cost to ourselves, as a gift of life. Beauty surrounds us, fulfills us, and if you look, even cursorily, fills us, one and all. It is a pity we go to such efforts to deny that in human beings.
Ridnik Chrome
@Mnemosyne: Well, being photographed wearing a swastika armband probably didn’t help Siouxsie out much, either. But if rock radio became boring and predictable in the late Seventies-Eighties (and I agree, it did) the blame should be placed where it belongs, on the people who ran the radio stations, not on some nebulous entity called “Rock”.
chopper
@? Martin:
I think that trump thinks he can fuck over mccabe’s pension and reporters failed to verify that he can’t.
raven
@EZSmirkzz: dang
mai naem mobile
Moving here from the UK, one of the annoying things you notice about American radio is how they play the same fucking songs over and over. You can like a song but they over play it and you end up hating the song.
raven
@Ridnik Chrome: I was watching my Dead, Santana and Airplane Live at the Family Dog and Jorma has a Buddhist swastika on.
germy
@mai naem mobile: In the 1970s, “free form radio” was more of a thing. The DJ would wander in and play whatever he felt like playing. Sometimes it’d be an entire side of an album he was currently enthusiastic about, or sometimes it’d be a bunch of songs that were tied together by some common theme or artist.
I think sometime in the ’90s, radio became more automated and playlists more rigid.
raven
@EZSmirkzz: For you
Jefferson Airplane – Comin’ Back To Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y43W5yMaZO0
Jewish Steel
@Mnemosyne:
When you look up Terri Hemmert (the one female voice I can think of) google offers you 5 men in the “other people search for” box. Which makes your point nicely.
SmokeyB
Another great post JS – look how well you’ve stirred up all these music loving Juicers this morning. Bravo!
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
Hey, I kinda liked some of their stuff!
Gravenstone
@raven: Not a question of “better”. Rather, an example of the entire band being co-opted by the powers that be into recording what is arguably one of the worst “rock” songs ever created.
Mnemosyne
@EZSmirkzz:
Music fans love to categorize things into neat little genres. Actual musicians, not so much, so it can be surprising to see how broad a musician’s taste actually is if you’re used to seeing them in their little box.
Which is why this is one of my all-time favorite cover songs.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: you could have gone with the original “can’t find my home” (one of all time favorites) because young Stevie Winwood sounded like a chick singer
Gravenstone
@scav:
You can likely put that onto the A&R folks. Wanting a visually appealing hook to sell the band.
raven
@Gravenstone: Jorma and Jack weren’t.
Jewish Steel
@Ridnik Chrome: I used to think like that and told one of my friends that maybe music history and theory was pointless. “It’s all right there in the score. What’s to discuss?” He told me that all of the arguing and theorizing and philosophizing about something that’s important is a deeply human, and hence important, thing to do. That was good enough for me and I was back in the club!
Fair Economist
@Jewish Steel: Even at the time I thought “New Wave” was different from “punk rock”. New Wave was supposed to have a tune.
Steve in the ATL
@mai naem mobile: yup. About twenty years ago I was complaining to some radio industry friends that I had limited tolerance for classic rock stations because they played the same 500 songs over and over. They laughed at what an old timer I was, as classic rock stations were then playing only 200 songs over and over.
God help people who listened to Top 40. Was that literal?
eclare
@raven: One of my favorites, Today.
Gravenstone
@raven: Well, no. They’d both long ago left the band before it reached that particular creative nadir.
TenguPhule
Wapo.
Mcconnell will fuck that chicken into the fucking ground.
Steve in the ATL
@Jewish Steel: see also the baseball discussion on horseback in the movie “city slickers”
Steve in the ATL
@raven: love you, dawg brother, but they will never live down the Starship years
ThresherK
@Jewish Steel: Anyone who is in Chicago (I am not), famous classic rock station The Loop just recently passed and was sold to be part of the everspreading KLove Christian pop network.
Jewish Steel
@scav: In my experience female fronted acts get booked much more readily than the standard 4 white guys. So there’s no excuse to not have women in your band. Unless you can’t find one who wants to listen you whine about your last break-up. :D
raven
@eclare: Great tune too!
raven
@Steve in the ATL: Jorma played here a couple of weeks back, I got warned he was all jesusy but, if he is, it didn’t come through, Three hours by himself and it was awesome.
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
IANA musician, but New Wave always seemed more pop-oriented: Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, etc.
Jewish Steel
@mai naem mobile: I often wonder if I would have liked the Doors. Since I heard the same 6 Doors songs 700,000 times before I could make a decision, I guess I’ll never know.
raven
Paul Kantner – electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, bass machine, vocals
Grace Slick – piano, vocals
Jerry Garcia – banjo on “Let’s Go Together”, pedal steel guitar on “Have You Seen the Stars Tonite”, sound effects and vocals on “XM”, lead guitar on “Starship”
Bill Kreutzmann – drums on “Let’s Go Together”
Mickey Hart – percussion on “Have You Seen the Stars Tonite”, sound effects and vocals on “XM”
Joey Covington – drums and vocals on “Mau Mau”, congas on “Hijack”
Jack Casady – bass on “A Child Is Coming” and “Sunrise”
David Crosby – vocals and guitar on “A Child Is Coming” and “Have You Seen the Stars Tonite”, background vocals on “Starship”
Graham Nash – congas on “Hijack”, sound effects on “Home”, background vocals on “Starship”
David Freiberg – background vocals on “Starship”
Harvey Brooks – bass on “Starship”
Peter Kaukonen – lead guitar on “Mau Mau”
Phill Sawyer[10] – sound effects on “Home” and “XM”
Chip Daniels
I think much rock criticism like this is a bit overthought.
On one hand, the youthful idealism and lust for life of rock music is celebrated, but then us Old Guys want these very same lusty carefree young people to express a depth and maturity and nuanced vision of the world that can only possibly be gained by age and experience.
The line between youthful exuberance and youthful callowness is razor thin, and most young people veer across it many times as part of their maturation process.
And about this notion that there was a Golden Age of rock n roll with broadminded multicultural understanding…
With all due respect, there was NEVER a time when white teenagers were broadminded about black people.
Mick and Keith and Paul and John and Eric and all the young white kids in England who grooved to Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf may have thought they were being liberal and enlightened, and I am sure their sweet little hearts were in the right place, but really, “food and festival” multiculturalism is just the first step towards forming a relationship of understanding and respect.
“Animal House” showed this very well (perhaps inadvertantly) when the frat boys who grooved to Otis Day like real hep cats went to a real black club and realized they have no fucking idea who Otis Day really was, or what his world was like.
Its like an earnest young person reading Scripture and thinking spiritual enlightenment is easy and quick and can be learned over a summer.
This isn’t a criticism. Its just to say that expecting young people to have the emotional depth of old people is something old people tend to wish for.
john (not mccain)
@patroclus:
“(And I could dance to Yoko’s shrieking all day!)”
I accidentally (while drunk shopping) purchased the Onobox a few months. Best damn accident! She was so far ahead of her time. And my favorite memory from my crappy little DJ career was getting to play Kiss Kiss Kiss at a Baptist college radio station.
raven
@Jewish Steel: There’s blood in the street that’s up to my ankles. . . .
p.a.
@raven: Believe they are currently, or soon to be, touring. I saw Jorma solo about a year ago, sitting in a comfy chair on stage playing acoustic blues. I was 56/57 y.o. at the time, bringing the avg age of the crowd down, and there were almost fistfights. Hippies interrupting the songs shouting “Play it man!”, “That’s how it’s done!” etc, and other hippies shouting back “Will you shut the fuck up!” Good times!
Jewish Steel
@SmokeyB: :D My favorite music writers make me look at my record collection askance.
raven
@p.a.: That was this show but, being this is Athens (GA) everyone was cool save on or two requests that he declined. The schedule this summer is a mix of him, him and Jack wooden and electric Tuna.
James E. Powell
@Jewish Steel:
Totally agree and I would stress that such arguing and theorizing and philosophizing have been part of this – whatever this is – as long as I’ve been engaged with it. But your post is like the one Loomis at LG&M writes from time to time. More broad brush trollery than theory or philosophy. Meaning no disrespect.
Jewish Steel
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I really like Panama. It’s a fuckin jam.
EZSmirkzz
@raven: Sounds like an opening line to a song! Wang dang doodle lang …
Steve in the ATL
@Ridnik Chrome:
Honestly, I think that is true only for a certain age group—something like people now in their sixties. Younger than that probably know the name, might know some of the music, but don’t consider her canon. People a decade younger saw her picture a lot in Rolling Stone but didn’t hear her music; instead it would have been Deborah Harry and Chrissy Hynde.
Jewish Steel
@Fair Economist: It’s a useful distinction. Is anyone with ears going to put Duran Duran and Gang of Four in the same category?
EZSmirkzz
@raven: Thanks. Listening to it now as I read along.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Canon itself is different for different age groups.
Steve in the ATL
@Jewish Steel: hey, Sha Na Na played Woodstock! but yeah.
Jewish Steel
@ThresherK: Yeah. That’s a bummer. The original Disco Demolition station.
Mnemosyne
@Chip Daniels:
As someone who is now officially middle-aged (I turn 50 next year — yikes!), it’s been very interesting for me to watch the various Angry Young Men (and Women) who are about my age mature and see whose art has deepened with age and whose did not.
Also, I could have told Snoop Dogg that he was going to regret his involvement with porn as soon as he settled down and had kids, but nobody asked me.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: indeed, as you, Mike J, and I (and a few others) demonstrate every music thread
EZSmirkzz
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, I was a little surprised when Bob covered Frank Sinatra. We could all do with widening ourselves out a bit.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: And Melanie!
Mandalay
@Chip Daniels:
Or maybe they just played and copied music that they really liked instead of your condescending nonsense. Occam’s razor and all that.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Yea, we still had the old 105’s when I was around!!!
Jewish Steel
@Chip Daniels: This is excellently stated.
Steve in the ATL
@waspuppet:
Well said. He should have quit after “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and if there’s a rock’n’roll heaven, you know they got a helluva band
Mnemosyne
@Jewish Steel:
Steve Dahl and Garry Meiers!
I quickly abandoned them for WXRT once I hit adolescence. But I still have a soft spot for local boys Cheap Trick.
Ridnik Chrome
@Jewish Steel:
I agree. One of the few things I like better than listening and playing music is talking about it. I just think that trying to organize it into neat categories is a fool’s errand, because there will always be too many things that don’t fit in one place or another.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: That too.
schrodingers_cat
These music threads remind me of arcane theological debates.
SmokeyB
@EZSmirkzz: Well said.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: They are arcane theological debates.
Steve in the ATL
@Frankensteinbeck: saw this post on an earlier thread and loved it, but you missed an opportunity here to tie in the Scandinavian music, which inexplicably rocks.
The Jessica Fletchers “summer holiday and me”, “sorry about the noise”
Cocktail Slippers “St. Valentine’s Day”
Raveonettes “love in a trash can”
Vibeke Sautegad “meant to be with you”, “he’s peculiar”
To name a few off the top of my head
Jewish Steel
@James E. Powell: I actually wrote most of this several years ago probably in a fit of pique of some kind. It’s a topic, call it Classic Rock and its Discontents, that I’ve been wrestling with for a long time. My last album grapples with it too. I have a bunch of ideas swirling around in my head about all of this and if one of those nice MacArthur Genius Grant people could just see their way clear to setting me up, I’ll go away and figure it all out.
woodrowfan
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: same here, but these threads are meant to show how cool you are by trashing popular bands…
kindness
The 80’s were a horrible decade for rock but the 90’s brought us grunge and the kids brought it alive again.
Even now you have Michigan kids Greta Van Fleet sounding like the old British invasion bands so rock is living on.
Mnemosyne
Also, I can only imagine the expression on Dave Grohl’s face when he first saw that his idol Prince played “The Best of You” at the Super Bowl. ??
p.a.
@schrodingers_cat: <
That would be a great name for a band.
Jewish Steel
@Steve in the ATL: You can always whip that out at the Woodstock generation. It’s a sweet burn.
Mnemosyne
@woodrowfan:
I like the Foo Fighters. Fight me.
scav
@Jewish Steel:
But that just sounds like it’s easier to sell cars if you’ve got a bikinied cutie draped over the hood. That’s window-dressing, not integration into the team. It should also about having solidly mediocre if adequate bass players out there and not as a cheap hook.
Patricia Kayden
@cleek: Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, Blondie, Chryssie Hinds.
woodrowfan
@john (not mccain): “Kiss, Kiss, Kiss” was a B-side to something. In college a bunch of us were in a local pizza place when a bunch of obnoxious drunk townies came in. We put several bucks worth of quarters in the jukebox, picked “Kiss Kiss Kiss” like 20 times, then left…
Schlemazel
You know what else you saw in late 60s early 70s rock and or roll that you never see again?
Mixed race groups
TenguPhule
@kindness:
Which was a crime against humanity
woodrowfan
@Mnemosyne: I do too. Their cover of “Baker Street” is very good. I’m a late-boomer (about to turn 59) but I liked a lot of 90s alternative/grunge. I have way too much Alice in Chains, Stabbing Westward, and Pearl Jam on my iPod for someone over the age of 40..
Omnes Omnibus
@kindness: There was a lot of good rock in the ’80s. You just had to look for it.
Mnemosyne
@Schlemazel:
You saw it a lot in the much-maligned disco and funk bands, too. Or does funk get split off from disco now, even though they were conjoined twins at the time?
Jewish Steel
@raven: My first wife, a change of life baby, was named by her much older siblings who were super into this song at the time.
Ridnik Chrome
@Mnemosyne:
Hello, fellow Chicagoan-in-exile. You and I probably went to a few of the same shows, back in the day. And speaking of Cheap Trick, I used to joke that the Illinois Entertainer had an editorial policy that required them to mention the Boys From Rockford at least once every issue.
Gin & Tonic
@Steve in the ATL: I have a friend who was an engineering student at Columbia back in the 60’s. He liked to sing, so he spent a lot of time with an a cappella group, but after a while, he concluded they were going nowhere, and stopped. Within a year or two, they hit it big as Sha Na Na.
Mnemosyne
@woodrowfan:
I think that Grohl and Eddie Vedder are probably the two biggest names of that era who are still thriving. Turned out that Vedder’s voice is perfect for Tom Petty’s songs — who knew?
JWR
@Jewish Steel:
Just an aside… I saw Gang Of Four in a small theater in Pasadena, CA, called, I think, the Raymond, and Jaybus! They played the damn noisiest, breathtaking-est show I’d ever seen! I’d heard their records, and liked them okay, but they were one of those bands that one truly had to see live to fully appreciate. Kinda like Gentle Giant, I suppose.
Stan
Is it OK to mention here that Joan Jett once flirted with me? Because if I can ever brag about anything that’s gonna be it.
Jewish Steel
@schrodingers_cat:
@Omnes Omnibus: Scholasticism.
NobodySpecial
Whatever your viewpoint is on music, I think we can all agree that once large amounts of money brings in corporatization, that’s pretty much the death knell for that musical style as a creative force. Some acts may rise above it, some acts might work around it, but in the main it becomes a spent force.
Mnemosyne
@Ridnik Chrome:
I should probably confess up front that I was a Duranie, so we may or may not have been at the same shows. ?
I did see some amazing shows at Alpine Valley. Triple bill of Mojo Nixon, The Pogues, and the Violent Femmes for the win.
Ridnik Chrome
@Schlemazel:
Prince made a point of integrating his backing bands. One of the many things I admired about him. Also, don’t know if you would consider them rock and roll per se, but Eighties ska bands like the Specials, Madness et al were mixed.
Mnemosyne
@Stan:
Are you a woman? Because if you’re not, she was just amusing herself. ?
tybee
@schrodingers_cat: lol
i agree.
Jewish Steel
@scav: It’s still show biz. Even if it is at its least exalted level when you are playing some dive bar in the Midwest.
Steve in the ATL
@woodrowfan:
If you were younger you might have the same music but in on your iPhone!
? Martin
And it’s looking like Trump is finally openly throwing down against California.
Brown has a +27 approval rating, Trump has a -45 in the state. He’s even below the inviolable 27% approval number here.
Pruitt is coming after us.
We’ve got ICE targeting us. Sessions. Pruitt. Trump. Bring it, motherfuckers. Maybe casting California as the enemy will gin up support in Alabama, but there’s 26 GOP seats here that they desperately need to hold the House that they are putting in jeopardy, and the truth is that we’re going to win every one of these legal fights, just as we’ve won them in the past. California’s economy has grown faster than the national average. Yes, our taxes are higher, but guess what – that was a public referendum. The voters specifically chose that result. We’ve specifically voted to expand access to abortion. We’ve voted for better healthcare. We’ve voted for cleaner air. We’ve voted for less gerrymandering. We’ve voted for fewer greenhouse gases.
There is a method to this. One reason why the legislature often puts these items out as referendums when they have enough votes to carry it in the legislature is that it’s damn near impossible for a federal judge to strike down a measure that imposes no unreasonable burdens on citizens that was passed in a referendum. That’s why getting same-sex marriage passed by referendum rather than by judicial ruling has been so important to achieve.
Ruckus
@mai naem mobile:
That’s the radio here at work. Classic fucking rock. The only thing classic is that every song has been played a thousand times. This month. The only reason one might think of this as rock is because you get told that every other song. And this is a station that actually was a rock station, 5 decades ago.
EZSmirkzz
@Chip Daniels: I see kids on the street today, protesting the nuance and wisdom of us old guys, without rock n roll, while accepting that a bit of depth, and patience, is gained with age. I want the kids to have fun too.
As for the Beatles and the Stones, they were surprised that black music wasn’t being played in the states. but lets not pretend that we know the chicken as it hatches from its’ egg either. The Beatles wouldn’t play a segregated concert in the states even back in 65. Let’s not judge the journey by the first steps of it. There are hills to climb, and stumbling and falling downs to be endured. But so long as we are not destroyed we will achieve our goal. Humans have been learning to hate “others” for hundreds of thousands of years, we cannot expect that to change in a generation, or even in two or three. But we can expect to prevail because both science and religion are allied to that same cause.
Like will.i.am said, “Humanity has issues.” These issues will take time to resolve, but if we conquer these issues in our own hearts and minds, then we have changed the world, atomically perhaps, but as much as all but a very few ever will. To overcome one’s own hatreds, and superiority, is the art of growing, and the beauty of memory is to remember when we ourselves were not so.
Cacti
@woodrowfan:
Aren’t people over the age of 40 now the core audience for those groups? (guilty, btw)
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne:
Wow—that totally makes up for having cross the border into Wisconsin!
(Note to Omnes: zing!)
EZSmirkzz
@SmokeyB: Thanks.
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
Our underground and undergroundish AOR stations were all bought out or reprogrammed out of existence by the ’80s and so college and indy public radio it was, for those lucky enough to be within listening distance. That, and hanging at record stores (all kids everywhere: “Record whats?”). I didn’t get cable that decade so MTV didn’t mean anything.
EZSmirkzz
@NobodySpecial: Been killing acts for a long time hasn’t it?
Jewish Steel
@Mnemosyne: One of my longtime girlfriends was at that show! Man I wished I’d seen that bill.
woodrowfan
@Ridnik Chrome: Live at Budokan is the best live album, ever!
Litlebritdifrnt
I will say again the March for Our Lives movement should use this as their anthem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbkOZTSvrHs
TenguPhule
@? Martin:
What’s worrying is that the GOP ratfuckers are getting increasingly bolder about not giving a shit about legalities.
AnonPhenom
I can’t believe it took 30 comments to get to “Bonnie Raitt”.
Walker
@Cacti:
This has become the new Classic Rock. I have a local (college) radio station that claims it is the station of “modern” rock. So all it plays is rock from the 90s. It is like a damn time capsule.
It is because no young people listen to radio anymore. Why, when you can get Spotify or Pandora in your car? After a decade of not buying any new music, those services got me back into music.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Drinking age was 18 across that border too.
@trollhattan:
WLFM for me.
ETA: WSUM in Madison has some very good DJs and some shows that are just two ag majors talking about cows. Now that’s a good radio station.
scav
@Jewish Steel: Well, sure. But then, a lot of the dreck (variously defined) that people have been complaining about for nearly 200 comments, and all the collapse in radio playlists should also get a pass because hey, it’s showbusiness and clearly makes money.
But, as an abstract point about what it means to be integrated into the team, I’m standing by the run-of-the-mill bassist/drummer/whatever rather than the token singer needed to catch the bookings.
Haroldo
@Jewish Steel: Having cut my musical teeth in them, I view playing dive bars in the Upper Midwest as a fairly exalted form of the art, or at least of the craft. This might be a romanticized exercise in nostalgia, but I think that is where a musician truly learns (or learned). You know, a very white chitlin circuit.
WereBear
Recently found out Bowzer got a PhD in some kind of forensic analysis.
This makes me inexplicably happy. That’s a good use of those gig fees.
JWR
@? Martin:
We don’t dictate anything to the rest of the country! We do, however, provide a breathable benchmark for the rest of the country. God, I hate that man, Pruitt. Every bit as much as I hate Trump.
kindness
@TenguPhule: – Pearl Jam? Nirvana? Soundgarden? Not to mention 90’s Black Crowes, Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors……yea I only wish every decade was that bad.
Mandalay
@raven: O/T but have you seen this: https://youtu.be/INRY52zwg_w
That would be pretty high on my list of the songs you shouldn’t ever think about covering, but hats off to them for trying.
Minstrel Michael
@NobodySpecial: Yup. There’s the music itself, which is a complicated brew of what else has been played lately, plus the technology, plus the cultural externalities, plus the innate artistry of the writers/performers. And then there’s the machinations of the interest groups that control the means of production and the distribution channels, who all function as gatekeepers with their palms out. And it’s the latter who have all the incentives to both broaden the focus to create a market for their product– “The Beatles” suddenly morphs into “The British Invasion,” for example– and to abandon the artists they hornswoggled into climbing aboard as soon as they don’t meet their quarterly targets any more. These are, to say the least, vastly different skill sets.
Thing is, Jewish Steel sometimes comes off so cynical I can almost believe he’s defending the corporatists, which I’m sure is the furthest thing from his intention.
TenguPhule
@kindness: I was teasing.
Agorabum
@James E. Powell: the kids still see a ton of live shows – most tickets are $15-30.
However, mega stars, legends, and arena shows are more expensive.
Haroldo
@Steve in the ATL: Steve, Steve, Steve (may I call you Steve?)……the embrace of fetid FIBdom will get you nowhere. (Although it must be said Wisconsin has not fared at all well under its current set of Koch rockers.)
frosty
@raven: Baxters is close to my favorite album, and my favorite song on it is Wyld Time, especially the segue leading into it from Martha.
Gin & Tonic
@WereBear: Bowser didn’t have an academic career, although several of the original members did, resulting in at least two MD’s and several PhD’s. One did become a professor of linguistics and did some forensic work in that capacity. Their act was, simply, an act.
Haroldo
@Omnes Omnibus: How is WORT these days? In the late 70s and 80s, it was a wonderful place to learn about the rest of the musical world.
James E. Powell
@Jewish Steel:
There’s been an awful lot of slagging of The Doors in recent years and I guess that’s a reaction to the previous years in which The Doors and Morrison had a cult following considered them Rock Gods. Having a singer in the 27 Club helped make that happen.
In context, at the time those albums came out, I don’t want to say they were just another band to put them down because they had hits, they sold a lot of albums, but with everything else going on at that time, they were kind of just another band. There was no need to have a position on The Doors as a component of one’s music identity.
A lot of people point & laugh at Morrison because he can’t really sing and his lyrics are often embarrassing. But some of the greatest bands have singers who can’t really sing (Jagger probably foremost among many) and a lot of lyrics are embarrassing (“Stairway to Heaven” probably foremost among these).
Mnemosyne
@Jewish Steel:
We missed most of Mojo Nixon because my idiot friend forgot it was a triple bill and who sees the opening act anyway? Gah.
@Omnes Omnibus:
They changed it to 21 right before I turned 18. Bastards.
Omnes Omnibus
@Haroldo: Its talk elements went way too far into Jill Stein territory for me so I really stopped listening to it. The music was still very eclectic last time I listened. I used to live just around the corner from it.
No One of Consequence
So late to the party, pearls of wisdom will fall at the feet of lingering post-swine. This isn’t a commentary or off-hand remark on those that have the poor fortune to read this, but rather, the proper bludgeoning of a time-worn trope.
In any decade, any era, there is Shite and there is Solid. Some decades seem to have more Shite than Solid, and the other way round.
I am not a fan of Disco, but some say that it helped shed light on Funk. I am not a fan of Popular Music as such, even when that Popular Music was Rock and Roll. So, I would argue, that it is all in where you look, and what you deign to count as significant.
The 90’s sucked for popular music. It can be argued this is true. Classic Rock sucks, this can also be argued to be true. But it is all Subjective. Regardless. In the early 90’s the stadium shows were the ‘OMG they are getting back together and going on tour’ Tour. Zepplin, Eagles, Floyd, etc. Lots of folks were thinking it was the Xerox era. Nothing new, just copying the old crap in a new boxed set package that costs a month’s rent…
But the late 80’s and 90’s gave rise to…
Jefferson Starship… but also:
Fishbone.
Milli-Vanilli… but also:
Black Flag and Rollins Band
Debbie Gibson… but also:
Follow For Now
Music is a lot like alcohol: listen/drink what you like. Fvck everyone else and their ‘tastes’.
YMMV, of course,
– NOoC
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I was 20 when it changed so I was grandfathered in. The the freshman class of my senior year(85-86) were the first who were truly hit by it.
? Martin
@Mnemosyne: I do too. My only issue with Foo Fighters is that Grohl doesn’t regularly drum.
The musician that hasn’t been mentioned here is Chris Cornell. He changed the trajectory of music more than almost outside of hip hop through the late 80s, IMO. Immensely talented guy. Shame we don’t have him around any longer.
Got The Black Keys on rotation now. Love their stuff.
Haroldo
@Omnes Omnibus: Ditto – or very close when it was on Willy St. Yep, having it be a Stein way would be really grating.
? Martin
@WereBear: Actually, Jon Bauman (Bowzer) is a surprisingly big Dem operative now. He cofounded a few Dem PACs focused on senior voting rights and policy advocacy. He and Josh Marshall got into a bit of a Twitter friendship at one point (much to Josh’s delight).
Omnes Omnibus
@Haroldo: It moved to West Doty St.
VeniceRiley
@Stan: A friend on fb just posted a candid of Joan at the airport yesterday. Still looking like the skinny little rocker. I have several of her songs on regular usb drive rotation and … they’re all starting to sound the same to me. Catchy punkish format though.
Watching all y’all argue about music is as fascinating as watching New Yorkers chat about real estate.
Schlemazel
@Ridnik Chrome:
Prince was not my taste so I was unaware of that. I do listen to ska though so I knew they mixed some.
SFBayAreaGal
@raven: Rock the Boat is one of my favorite songs.
Steve in the ATL
@James E. Powell: Jagger had a great voice when he was young. Morrison was a far better singer than such famous rock singers as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, and Tom Petty, to name a few.
But yeah, the Doors cult in the 80’s got really tiresome even though I loved a lot of their music. Including their cover of “Gloria” at a soundcheck before an LA show.
Matt
@Stan: My read of “here” in the original is “out of the bands of the time described that were considered ‘rock'” – all three that you listed are classified (according to Wikipedia, anyways) as punk or post-punk.
Jager
@germy: Geez Frank did you forget your producer, that old rock-a-billy guy, Jimmy Bowen talked you into using LA’s The Wrecking Crew studio band and you ended up with “Strangers in the Night”, your best selling album ever with that lousy, no talent rocker Leon Russell on piano and a hillbilly guitar player named Glen Campbell and the rest of those slugs that played on all kinds of rock records by the Mamas and Poppas, the Beach Boys and half the hits of the late 60’s and early 70’s.
germy
@Jager: Frank gave that quote earlier, around 1956.
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne: you missed “destroy all lawyers”? Sad.
@Haroldo: @Omnes Omnibus: as a Chicago native, I am obligated to slag on Wisconsin, but not in a serious way. And by the time I was 18 I had moved to Memphis, where Mississippi played the part of nearby state still with an 18 drinking age. Thus, Wisconsin was at least as useful as Mississippi! Sorry, that was just mean.
? Martin
@No One of Consequence:
Except that’s when Soundgarden landed big, and when other influences came in like Weezer, Rage, Green Day, and on the other side Radiohead, etc. Those had pretty substantial impact, though they didn’t usually get a lot of radio play. What they did was to break up the big supergroup/monolithic scene (best characterized by Classic Rock) and open it up to a wider range of acts that could experiment at the margins playing smaller venues. Yeah, it kept them out of the majority of radio audiences, but it paved the path out of the vacuum left when all the 70s acts had overstayed their talent. It shifted the emphasis away from albums and toward online music/playlists. If you lived in a market that could give those acts playtime, it was pretty good. If you were out in white working class land, you probably didn’t hear all that much of them.
? Martin
@JWR: In an economic sense we do. California is such a large auto market, that it’s often cheaper for automakers to comply with California rules than to ship two different versions of vehicles. They object to California being able to (effectively) veto federal rules simply due to our size and influence.
Jager
@JWR: Auto makers went with California’s emission standards because we buy move god damned cars than any other state…the market has spoken Pruitt.
Haroldo
@Steve in the ATL: And we have the Fox River (the Wisco version) delta, too! Play the blues.
I’m guessing spending your semi-wonder years in Memphis was stunningly wonderful. I am, perhaps crazily, envious.
Jager
@germy: Jimmy Bowen told me Old Blue Eyes was still thinking that way when they were discussing “Strangers in the Night”. Bowen had to talk him into trying it with the Wrecking Crew, Frank had wanted to do another Nelson Riddle session. They did it Jimmy’s way and Frank liked it.
Steve in the ATL
@Haroldo: I tell people that Memphis is a great place to be from
Jewish Steel
@Haroldo: If you’re talking half empty dive bars then you are singing my song. A round for everyone who turned on their stools to watch the band!
Jewish Steel
@WereBear: Bowzer is a good Democrat too. I think he ran for state office or something.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in the ATL:
We got there just in time for “Elvis is Everywhere” and “Goodnight, y’all!” Yes, I’m still bitter.
mg_65
@Frankensteinbeck: Your summary is brilliant and insightful and hilarious.
Jewish Steel
@James E. Powell: I wrote about that in my last post and it’s one of the things I love about rock music. Good singing is not preferred over distinctive voices. I don’t think anyone would call Jimi Hendrix a good singer, but I do love his voice.
Haroldo
@Jewish Steel: Love Hendrix’s phrasing. Ditto Dylan’s.
germy
@Jager: Fun trivia that he was married to Keely.
Haroldo
@Minstrel Michael:
Steve in the ATL
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s fantastic, though I’ll bet Sha Na Na seemed only slight more commercially viable than an a capella group.
@Jewish Steel:
True in all types of popular music, I think. Competent bar bands can play “jumping jack flash” or “friends in low places” or “bo diddley” where the singer hits all the notes but it still sucks.
Great example is “you can’t always get what you want”, a rather boring song, and unlistenable in a bar played by a guy with a good but non-jagger voice who’s strumming C and F, but awesome when the Stones did it.
Jewish Steel
@Haroldo: Dylan can tweak a word or phrase in his songs in a way that I find breathtaking. He’s an amazing singer with a voice that only some can love, I guess.
Jewish Steel
@Steve in the ATL: I think straight up pop music is more singerly. And that is why I find all that American Idol dreck totally unbearable.
joel hanes
My raised-on-hip-hop granddaughters, who are 23 and 30 respectively, would regard the FP post and almost this entire discussion the way I would regard an argument over the relative merits of different brands of steam-driven tractors.
James E. Powell
@Agorabum:
Maybe I should have defined both “da kids” and what I meant by live shows. I’m talking high school and major acts. When I was in high school – this is hazy memory – I saw the Stones w/Stevie Wonder for $6, Rod Stewart & the Faces w/Deep Purple for $3.50, Pink Floyd for $3. I saw the Who, Zeppelin a couple times, Sabbath all for about twice the price of a movie ticket. This was all before or in the days right after graduation. I never had to ask my parents for the money. Money was never the reason I couldn’t go to the concert.
The equivalent for the kids I know – Los Angeles high school students – would be (according to them because I just now asked them) Drake, Childish Gambino, Justin Bieber, or Lil Pump. Those tickets are north of $100 and that is out of range for these kids.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: We all go to hell in our own ways.
Jewish Steel
@joel hanes: Lol.
Haroldo
@joel hanes: Dig those crazy Farm-All bootlegs, Jackson.
Steve in the ATL
@joel hanes: my kids listen to a lot of rap as well, and that’s mostly what gets played at their all-white private school student parties, which i find both amusing and disturbing.
When we get a new music thread, I’ll opine about how “str8 outta Compton” is the greatest rap album ever and today’s rappers don’t compare to Run-DMC, LL Cool J, KRS-One, etc. These kids today and their Puff Diddies….
Haroldo
And a Big (gold) Star for the phrase, “big, seething, electric sex-tent!”
Jewish Steel
@Haroldo: This is correct. I have a complex relationship with rock music. I don’t just listen to rock music, I make it too. And so I feel like it is incumbent upon me to see what I do (and its history) as clearly and unsentimentally as possible. .
Steeplejack (phone)
@Steve in the ATL:
Eh, don’t forget “2 + 2 = ?” Pretty tight little song.
ETA: Maybe that was before “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man.” Too lazy to look now. Carry on, then.
Kathleen
@raven: @eclare: Thank you both for refreshing my memory! I wore Surrealistic Pillow out my freshman year at University of Portland in 1967. These two ballads are beautiful.
Kathleen
@Jewish Steel: I. Despise. The. Doors.
J R in WV
Bonnie Raite? Susan Tedesche (Tedesche Trucks blues band) Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Stevie Nicks, Cyndi Lauper, Joan Jett, hmmmm… I know there’s more. Motown, Memphis, Muscle Shoals, women have been in the forefront of blues and rock since the early 1900s. Etta James, Koko Taylor, Bessie Smith, Billie Holliday, that list goes on forever. Shamika Copeland, Carrie Rodreguize, Lucinda Williams, that list goes on forever also.
Mountain Stage has rock women on almost every week!
And the Doors were cutting edge 45 years ago, still are. Your opinion is totally irrelevant to their place in rock/music history.
J R in WV
@AnonPhenom:
“I can’t believe it took 30 comments to get to “Bonnie Raitt”.”
Not to mention Janis!
Rick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCQ6DLwV9CI
Ruckus
@Jewish Steel:
The Doors were good when they were new. But the new wore off.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
A veritable child. 50? I can barely remember that far back. Actually that’s not true but it does seem like a long, long time ago. I remember thinking, “Damn, half a century. How the hell did that happen?”
Doug!
I’m born inside the belly of rock n’ roll.