Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
Let’s talk music! Always evolving, it seems.
🎶
I loved Buckingham Nicks. So many favorite songs from that album.
And then they joined Fleetwood Mac.
I don’t recall all the details, but I think they were playing musical chairs, and when the music stopped they all changed partners. That made for one great album!
A whole gaggle of musicians got together to honor Bob Dylan.
I was so happy to see George Harrison and all the others playing again on that stage, and I realized George had surely been playing for all these years since The Beatles and I had somehow missed it. You can just feel how much fun it was for all of them to be playing together. I dare you to watch Neil Young and Tom Petty sharing a mic and not feel your heart sing.
I hear Different Drum and I immediately think of Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet, but you may think of Linda Ronstadt or The Stone Ponies, and some of them moved on to become The Eagles.
Neil Young has had all sorts of musical lives, and I think now he’s back on tour with Crazy Horse.
And the son of someone I worked with asked him one day, “Dad, did you know that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?”
If that’s not enough, we can talk about backup bands and who they first opened for, or backup bands who ultimately became more famous or just as famous as the artist they opened for.
cope
Jimi Hendrix Experience opening for the Monkeys.
ETA: It didn’t last very long.
schrodingers_cat
I like The Chain by Fleetwood Mac.
Timill
When your backing band starts with Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello…
frosty
@schrodingers_cat: The Chain is one of my all time favorites. On the Fleetwood Mac album and Rumours they have a few songs with that heavy heavy backbeat. I love it!
I never got my old albums digital. These are still vinyl with no way to play them. Maybe I’m not as tired of them as I thought I was!
Omnes Omnibus
As long as we are mentioning covers. Here’s Jason and the Scorchers.*
*Who thought it was going to be this one?
dm
@cope: Mickey Dolenz still tours, and he makes fun of the audience reaction, playing the opening chords to Purple Haze, then breaks into a mocking chorus of “Mickey, Davey, we want the Monkees”
I’m listening to a fantastic podcast — Andrew Hickey’s “The History of Rock and Roll in 500 songs” (he’s up to song 180 or so, after several years). It’s fantastic — Patreons get bonus episodes on other songs of the time he’s currently discussing. He recently did monster episodes on the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead that were works of art as well as history.
He also did an episode on the Monkees that made me appreciate them much more — despite being the product of television, they fit into the serious music scene in interesting ways. I think the bonus for that week was on Tiny Tim, whose story was well worth the listening. Tim was a friend of Dylan’s and once teased him by performing a Dylan song in the manner of Rudy Valee followed by a Rudy Valee song performed in the manner of Dylan.
Paul in Jacksonville
This.https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9EAiJXXtc-bdbxNvRZCRs402jnbC_bxw
Melancholy Jaques
@Omnes Omnibus:
When asked to name underrated guitarists, I always say Warner Hodges. Sat in with a friend’s band a couple times and played Absolutely Sweet Marie and White Lies.
Salty Sam
I heard the same exchange- in 1984! – from the daughter of a woman I worked with. The tweener daughter asked her best friend, during a sleepover, “So, who were the Beatles?”
The friend answered “I think that was the band Paul McCartney was in before Wings.”
I instantly felt really old, and I was only 30 at the time!
cain
I can’t believe Neil Young married Daryll Hannah (who couldn’t get a gig thanks to that fucker Weinstein) and Daryll got pregnant with twins at her age.. damn.
Also Weinstein seems to caught at least one break – https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/25/us/harvey-weinstein-conviction-overturned-appeal/index.html
Fuck that man.
Leto
On a very related note, Avalune and I heard this interview yesterday:
Take My Break, Please
cain
Since talking about bands – I would like to point out this amazing bassist from India – Mohini Dey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w0JZpaHDz4
her story is amazing – imagine a father who said “my daughters need to be musicians for a living” and then trained his girls these girls. By the time she was 16 or 17, she’s already been playing with some renowned artists.
This is her story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJTXqHxt_UU
West of the Rockies
Rumours came out my freshman year in high school. It was inescapable (in a good way). I fell madly in love with a junior in my typing class. It was a very good year.
Central Planning
@cain: She was not pregnant: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/daryl-hannah-pregnant/
Viva BrisVegas
James Burton was the guitarist for the much underrated Ricky Nelson before he became Elvis’s.
Starfish
I am sorry, but this was the best George Harrison song.
cain
@Central Planning: I was surprised that at her age she could conceive.. damn fake news.
Salty Sam
so, first big arena concert I went to was Traffic, 1970, “Mr. Fantasy” tour. Opening act was an unheard of, Mountain, and with the opening eight beat on the cowbell for “Mississippi Queen”, I was smitten. Still one of my favorites.
cain
@West of the Rockies:
I hated typing class. But I loooooved the IBM selectrix. I got a D in typing. I still suck at typing, but I type super fast – but I make a ton of mistakes. These days just a lot of backspacing – the ‘D’ didn’t help my grade point average thats for sure.
Starfish
@Starfish: My husband has now just told me about the Traveling Wilburys where George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty were all in a band together. Handle Me with Care.
Raoul Paste
I saw the Eagles open for Yes. That was quite a night
BlueGuitarist
@Omnes Omnibus:
raises hand
And speaking of which,
Bruce: Raise Your Hand
Melancholy Jaques
@Starfish:
Please be sure to include Bob Dylan and Jeff Lynne
brendancalling
Today’s list:
Bommp, Volume 1
Glenn Campbell, Live double album, live in Nj
Supersuckers, Must’ve Been Live
Ella, Live in Hollywood
Bee Gees, To Whom It May Concern
Nuggets, Vol. 1
Dusty Springfield, Dusty in Memphis
Been a good night of audio.
Matt McIrvin
It seems to me that today, kids are much more likely to have heard of the Beatles than of Wings–Paul is still putting out records but Wings is long-forgotten.
(I thought “Band On the Run” was kind of cool though.)
Artistically, George Harrison may have had the best post-Beatles career of any of them, though it was cut short by cancer. I have a theory that “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun” were indications that when the Beatles broke up he was just starting to come into his own.
I liked the Traveling Wilburys too, though they weren’t the most profound band.
zhena gogolia
@Salty Sam: I’m watching the movie Yesterday, which has a funny take on that.
BlueGuitarist
WaterGirl:
Admirably on his 1974 North American tour George Harrison performed a new arrangement of
In My Life:
https://youtu.be/_v1j8eQpQnk?si=OUz05PDGYCP_3d9w
my favorite Here Comes the Sun cover:
https://youtu.be/jZJmXwJoqFo?si=zS53yJVNu8Kw_Y_l
WaterGirl
@Starfish: Thank you! I could not remember the name of their group so I didn’t want to mention it.
Matt McIrvin
The first I ever heard of the hilarious rap duo Flyana Boss was when I saw them open for Janelle Monáe. I won’t say they upstaged Janelle Freaking Monáe but they came closer to doing that than logic and good sense would imply. Then I found out they were some kind of viral TikTok phenomenon and people were inventing conspiracy theories about why they were as big as they were. Come on, they’re funny and adorable and raunchy, you don’t need any conspiracy theories.
Then they suddenly appeared on a YouTube video chatting with Hank Green. Well, OK, that’s confirmation that they’re cool.
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist: I love that cover of Here Comes the Sun. I first saw it during the pandemic. If I just listen, it sounds so much like the original.
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist: I owe you an email message.
BlueGuitarist
@cain:
I saw that Rick Beato video w/Mohini Dey:
Awesome!
Nancy
I like the early Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer. Oh Well Part I and II are worth discovering if you haven’t heard them. Christine McVee had a perfect blues voice. Before she married John McVee, she was Christine Perfect, playing in a band called Chicken Shack. More older treasures.
The Fleetwood Mac of the Buckingham Nicks era was enjoyable but no longer the blues band of early years.
Suzanne
Next week, I am going to see Bad Religion and Social Distortion. They are co-headlining this tour and they are taking turns in which band is going first. Spawn the Younger is going to go.
Bad Religion’s very first show was…. opening for Social Distortion. I have only seen Bad Religion once before, but I have seen Social Distortion more times than any other band….. this will be either seven or eight.
ETA: Social Distortion was the last live show I saw before the pandemic. Bad Religion was the first one I saw as I slowly came back out of my cave in 2021, when we had to show our vaccine cards to go anywhere. God, that was weird shit.
TBone
Speaking of many musical lives, I saw Neil Young with the Shocking Pinks open for George Thorogood at the Spectrum 🩷 man the 80s were crazy
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JFxX0gCQx94
lowtechcyclist
@Starfish:
You should be sorry! It’s not even a Harrison song, it was written by a guy named Rudy Clark in the early 1960s.
If someone asked me what George’s best song was, I’d be torn between “I’d Have You Anytime” and “Beware of Darkness” from the All Things Must Pass album.
Matt McIrvin
I saw Belle & Sebastian at the Orpheum last night. Great show. The opening act was just OK, though, a sort of jazz-fusiony-folk-rock act called The Weather Station. Really technically talented, with a lead singer who sounds a little like Karen Carpenter and virtuosic saxophone and keyboard players, but the songwriting needs some kind of hook that’s not there. Yet. There’s potential though.
Melancholy Jaques
@Salty Sam:
150 seconds of pure, unadulterated rock and roll.
piratedan
I could recommend out on Youtube finding the BBC4 series Peter Frame’s Rock Family Trees, which talk about the evolution of some of our most well known Rock and Roll Bands. The format talks about how groups came together and the incestuousness of local scenes where bands swapped players and how some found fame and others not so much.
The books are all kinds of awesome. They cover the UK and US bands like Fleetwood Mac, the Beatles, The Rolling Stones and other generational talents.
kalakal
Possibly the all time weirdest rock career was that of David Sutch aka
Screaming Lord Sutch
who before he went on to found the Monster Raving Looney Party and troll British Politics for years fancied himself as a rock star. Unhindered by any vestige of musical ability he managed to be the lead singer for a collection of bands featuring Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Ritchie Blackmore, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Charlie Watts, Noel Redding etc etc. He was a rubbish singer but great at making friends. His shows were always way over the top, a sort of proto Alice Cooper.
His album Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends was voted the worst record of all time in a BBC poll.
As a politician he stood for parliament a record 39 times never getting above 10% of the votes.
mvr
If you are going to mention Tom Petty, I will just say that I really miss Tom Petty. As far as I know he once bought everyone in his Lincoln fan club tickets to see him at Red Rocks when he cancelled a scheduled Lincoln show to play there. At least I found myself in a section with complementary tickets surrounded by other people from Lincoln. That’s the best explanation I can come up with for that.
Going to see Jason Isbell on Wednesday outside Omaha (outside in both senses). I hope that the forecast rain doesn’t happen. He did a heck of a job last may in Omaha. And his last several albums have some really fine songs.
prostratedragon
Joel Paterson is a veteran session guitarist: “And I Love Her”.
West of the Rockies
@cain:
I learned on a manual typewriter. The girl I loved was the fastest typist until the last week of school when I finally surpassed her. (I felt terrible but also wanted her to notice me.) 61wpm.
schrodingers_cat
@West of the Rockies: Typing on a manual typewriter was so satisfying! We had one at home when I was growing up.
prostratedragon
The Isely Brothers went yhrough a transition period of doing a lot of covers, e.g. “Summer Breeze”.
Matt McIrvin
Oh, yeah, and we saw Walk The Moon open for Muse at TD Garden several years ago. I can confirm that Walk The Moon did play the two songs of theirs I was familiar with. My niece was a huge Walk The Moon fan and was impressed that we got to see them
…And when we saw David Byrne on the American Utopia tour, Benjamin Clementine opened for him. My wife was more excited to see Benjamin Clementine, he’s pretty interesting.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Matt McIrvin: I saw Belle and Sebastian a few years ago on a bill with Ex Hex, Andrew Bird and Yo La Tengo. And Spoon! That was a fun concert.
My first concert was Camper Van Beethoven on their My Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart tour.
No, scratch that! My first was a free concert in Grand Haven, MI. A friend of mine’s parents took us to the beach for the day and on the way back to the car we saw the sign for the free concert, on the bill: Gary Puckett and the Union Gap Band, Paul Revere and the Raiders. I think Herman’s Hermits too but the headliners were The Monkees. My friends parents were big oldies fans so we of course had to go. It was fun.
frosty
@WaterGirl: You couldn’t remember the name of the group? And a couple of nights ago on this here Almost Top-10,000 Blog I learned where the name came from. When somebody hits a clam on the recording, the producer says:
“We’ll bury that in the mix.”
Melancholy Jaques
On the subject of covers, I only recently found this cover of “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” one of my favorite Velvet Underground songs, by June Tabor and a bunch of other people at a folk festival.
Another Scott
@Starfish: 🎶🎶🎵 “Look out I might set on you!” 🎵🎵🎶
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
West of the Rockies
@schrodingers_cat:
Do you recall the purple putty key cleaners? I liked manuals, too. But electrics made me faster (78 wpm). I worked with a guy in college who typed either 117 or 127 wpm.
p.a.
@Suzanne: Social Distortion, Sonic Youth, Neil Young. The Weld tour.
A++
Neil’s still about the only geezer I grew up with I’ll pay attention to for his new stuff.
lowtechcyclist
@Starfish:
And (as already noted) Bob Dylan and Jeff Lynne.
That first Wilburys album is a great album. It’s a shame Roy Orbison died so soon after, the band just wasn’t the same without him IMHO. Certainly the album they did after Roy passed just lacked a certain something, despite still having four heavyweight talents.
“End of the Line” from their first album has a special place in my heart. When it was getting airplay, I’d been together with my wife for less than two months, but I already knew we were “going to the end of the line” together.
PaulB
I love these international collaboration videos, playing classic music, often with non-traditional instruments. This is one of my favorites:
The musicianship is superb and the editing/producing to bring all of this together is just as good. Robbie’s smile at the end is just *chef’s kiss*. This also fits into the “change” theme, as this is a “Playing For Change” music video.
Matt McIrvin
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: One of the earliest rock concerts I went to was They Might Be Giants, on the Flood tour in 1990. The opening act was a guy named Carmaig De Forest whose one song I remember was an angry/wry ditty called “Crack’s No Worse Than The Fascist Threat.”
Shana
@Matt McIrvin: Oooh, we’re seeing Belle Thursday in DC. How were they? Last tour they were co-leading with Japanese Breakfast, who played too long with Belle, who played too short. Very disappointing.
frosty
@Nancy: Fleetwood Mac’s guitarists lasted about as long as Spinal Tap’s drummers.
I never much liked their early blues stuff. They came into their own with Then Play On, Kiln House, and Bare Trees.
swiftfox
@BlueGuitarist: I remember how he said his touring band in ’74 was more talented than the Beatles. They may have been great studio musicians but that doesn’t translate intoning a great band.
Matt McIrvin
@Shana: I thought it was a great show! I wasn’t coming from a position about knowing a lot about Belle & Sebastian, it’s more a case of “on the rare occasions when I hear these people on the radio it’s always really good.”
cain
@BlueGuitarist:
She was onstage with Steve Vai ! She has been wow’ing folks and of course she is bringing some of that Indian culture with her. Just a talented woman with some great sass and confidence.
We need role models like that.
swiftfox
@Nancy: I have Heroes Are Hard to Find and Bare Trees. Neither are critically acclaimed but Bare Trees is really worth it.
cain
My two cousins who are brothers.. their kids started an all Indian band. https://www.naturosynth.com/
Check them out! On Spotify they have 14k re regular listeners a month. They have been pretty good. They played at my wedding 2 years ago or so when they were about to hit college.
Brachiator
@cain:
I loved typing class. I took typing because I knew I was going to college and would have to type papers.
I was the only male in the class. I soon learned that going where the ladies were provided all kinds of strategic advantages.
Don’t remember the hardware we used, but later I got a sturdy Smith Corona, which served me well for a number of years.
cain
@Brachiator:
We had a number of males in our typing class. In fact it was a good mix. We were in home economics as well. But no girls in shop, alas. I hated shop. Fast forward and now I got some woodworking tools haha
mvr
One of my current favorite bands, the Drive by Truckers, opened for Tom Petty on the Mojo tour and worked it into one of their songs, at least when they do it live. I’m blanking on which one and Google isn’t helping me.
I see we’re on a typing grades theme. In middle school I either got a D in typing and a C in gym, or the other way around. Either way, I sucked at both. But I did love using the IBM Selectric I rented to type my Senior thesis in college with the balls I could switch for italic. Of course by then no one was telling me I could not look at my fingers.
swiftfox
I’ll add that no one has mentioned Fleetwood Mac’s “White” album that led to their stardom. A better album than Rumours, which would have been better if they had included Silver Springs, a much better and haunting song than I Don’t Want to Know (blah) and Gold Dust Woman (got a lot of FM airplay but just seemed to be Stevie in one of her mystic moods).
PS: Listened to Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak album today. One of the most underrated albums of the 70s.
frosty
My experience was similar. Me, my brother, and my best friend took typing in summer school before senior year with a roomful of cute girls. Unfortunately, it didn’t provide any strategic advantages but it sure was fun.
I have no idea which one of us thought we should learn to type. It was way before computers and word processing and was only needed for secretaries.
Matt McIrvin
@swiftfox: I always really liked that one. “Over My Head” and “Say You Love Me” are proof that Christine McVie was always the underrated star of the band.
NotMax
@Raoul Paste
Heh. So old I saw Yes open for Emerson Lake & Palmer.
citizen dave
I watched a few Neil Young songs from Wednesday’s tour opener in San Diego. For being 78 (and the CH bassist and drummer are the original guys–both 80), they are rocking very very hard. As hard as any people this old have rocked. Willie’s youngest Micah Nelson adding great playing and vibes as the new 4th Crazy Horse member. After about 80 minutes of electric jamming, Neil plays 3 solo acoustic tunes (Heart of Gold for sure), then a couple more electric tunes and done after 1 hour, 45 minutes. He has not played Ohio yet. They do have a show in New Orleans on May 4, so maybe then
Although Neil is now married to Daryl Hannah, they definitely DO NOT have children.
Mousebumples
Turn the Page by Metallica is one of my favorite covers.
I also love Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen. Not a cover, but I love the apocrophyl story that Freddy Mercury didn’t know the guitar *that* well, which is why the melody of the rockabilly song is way less complex that the typical Queen operatic number. (which I also love, lol)
kalakal
Horslips who more or less invented Celtic Rock have a great origin story. 3 of them were working for an ad agency and were pushed into being a fake rock group for a beer ad. They got a mate to play keyboards, decided it was more fun than the office job and took it from there
The Tain is one of my all time favourite albums
Dearg Doom
Faster than the Hound
Matt McIrvin
@frosty: I took typing as a pass/fail night course in high school. I was already heavily using computers at that point so there was no need to sell me on how useful this could be, but the typing class was something out of an earlier era, mostly using IBM Selectrics and emphasizing fast error-free copy.
The teacher had been raised on manual typewriters and insisted we should substitute a lower-case l for the digit 1, even though they were quite definitely distinct on a Selectric. I mentioned that computers cared about the difference, but she had never heard of that.
I wasn’t that good at it, at the time, but it gave me the basics that became absolute gold later. I think it was the most useful class I took in high school. It still amazes me that most coders never bother learning to touch-type and think they’re doing fine. Granted, code editors that have keyword completion help a lot, but being able to type encourages you to write helpful comments and documentation, which most coders don’t do.
And, yes, I had a giant crush on one of my classmates, though I was so bad at dating at that point in my young life that it was kind of doomed.
Omnes Omnibus
@cain: I dropped typing on the last day of class because I was getting a D. I took it is summer school between my junior and senior years of high school. The teacher tried to convince me to stay in and get the credit. I explain that I was, at that point, two credits short of what I needed to graduate and the D would hurt me more than the loss of credit. I don’t think that situation came up a lot.
S Cerevisiae
Saw Rory Gallagher open for Rush in 1982, fantastic show with festival seating and an open floor in the old Duluth Arena.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
Fair point. That Paul performs a lot of the Beatles catalog also helps. There are a number of YouTubers who are rediscovering the Beatles and a range of other artists. What’s sometimes disconcerting is that they will remember a song only because they heard it in a movie or a TV show and not have any other context for it.
John and Paul fell into an easy and natural collaboration. I get the impression that John tried to help George with some songs, but that’s not the same as equal collaboration. But George was patient and found his way. I remember his “Taxman” from Revolver being as sly and witty as any Lennon McCartney song, and as a kid it stuck out not only because it was a catchy tune, but because it wasn’t another song about romance or teenage angst.
NotMax
@Kalakal
Ah, Horslips. Haven’t thought of them in ages. Also too when it came to Celtic rock, JF Murphy & Salt.
laura
First concert 1974 Pablo Cruise opening for Boz Scaggs, California Theatre, Santa Rosa, CA. Most recent concert, Wednesday evening, April 24, 2024 Asleep at the Wheel opening for Willie Nelson and Family, Greek Theatre, UC Berkely, campus, Berkeley, CA. Both shows and each band excellent in every regard.
raven
Pfft, I’m so old I remember when Fleetwood Mac was a blues band.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: Another crank theory I have about the Beatles is that much of their cross-generational longevity comes from the movie “Yellow Submarine”, which has kid appeal (for a certain warped type of kid at least). That was largely how *I* was introduced to them, though I was slightly too young to witness their rise to glory and was a toddler when they broke up. And it was how my daughter mostly first encountered them.
Of course, the Beatles didn’t even really want to do the film, having been burned by that shoddy TV cartoon, and didn’t even do their own speaking voices except in a brief live-action postscript. But it turned out to be this odd psychedelic masterpiece and it showcases the music well.
raven
I saw the Stones on my 16th Birthday in 1965, McCormick Place.
prostratedragon
From the chorus to center stage:
“Small Day Tomorrow,” with Janis Siegel
“Early in the Morning,” feat. Catherine Russell
And a perennial all-star channelling the vox populi: “I Want to Be a Sideman,” feat. Rosemary Clooney
S Cerevisiae
@PaulB: have you seen the Playing For Change video of When The Levee Breaks? Just outstanding with a brilliant line up.
raven
@NotMax: I saw ELP open for Johnny Winter at Wabash College. Allmans twice before Duane died, the Dead more times that I can say. Leaned on Leon Russels piano and shot the shit with him between songs when he toured with Cocker’s band.
West of the Rockies
@NotMax:
Not to be confused with cudlips!
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator:
My daughter has jumped into the GenZ fascination with albums on cassette (the next retro thing after vinyl). She has a vintage Walkman from the early 1990s, but her cassette-collecting tastes have focused on 1970s stuff, Bowie and Elton John and Fleetwood Mac and Billy Joel. I remember when Fleetwood Mac was considered uncool dad music, but they’ve cycled all the way around and come back in style again; my kid and her friends all love them.
We tell them we always thought of cassette as the poor cousin of everything but the low-fi aspect of it is part of the fascination, I think, as well as the odd physicality of it. *My* whole music collection was on cassette in the 1980s, so it’s not like I can’t see the appeal.
OldDave
Jason was a panelist on this weekend’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.
Nobody has mentioned the Hoffs/Sweet cover of Different Drum, written by (wait for it) Michael Nesmith, once of The Monkees. So I will.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: My mom used a green Remington Rand manual to type up all her reports well into the 1980s, but I never got the hang of using a manual. You had to put your whole arm into it.
BretH
Not a backup band, but the talk about the Traveling Wilburys made me reminisce about seeing a supergroup. New Orleans, I was 20, saw UK in a small bar. Eddy Jobson on electric violin, Alan Holdsworth on guitar, John Whetton on vocals and bass (that voice!) and the transcendant Bill Bruford on drums. Good times!
Also in New Orleans saw the Dave Bromberg Band doing their “How Late’l ya Play Til” tour in another small club. My buddy and I got there to a packed bar with no apparent seats but up front an older guy waved us to his table. Turns out he was a record exec on an expense account and we had a delightful (burp) evening on his tab.
prostratedragon
Technically a cover of a hit: “I Heard I Through the Grapevine,” Marvin Gaye version.
Craig
Tom Petty. I wish I’d seen this tour when I was in High School. Consummate Performer
https://youtu.be/QpG09PenZt8?si=x41aZToByNBQT-bk
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
Speaking of Billy Joel(ish)….
:)
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: That’s what I liked about it. The space and carriage return were so much more satisfying than the similar functions on the computer keyboard. I was writing a book with my best friend in highschool. It was a fantasy novel. The plot got so convuluted that we gave up on it at the end of our summer vacation. I wonder if I can find it. I usually keep everything.
@West of the Rockies: I graduated from a manual typewriter to a computer
ETA: I like old things, tactile things. I just got myself a bunch of vintage and antique nibs for my dip pens.
Sure Lurkalot
@Raoul Paste:
I saw that show with my sister and sister in law in Los Angeles, sometime in the 70’s, I wasn’t a big Eagles fan but I remember loving their set. Yes was one of my favorites in high school and I saw them a few times.
My sister and I saw this weird combo in Las Vegas—Dave Mason, Loggins & Messina and Procol Harum. Loggins and Messina were staying at our hotel (Holiday Inn) and hanging out at the pool. That was special for a 17 year old!
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
Cassettes are a thing? I guess that song is true, everything old is new again.
Craig
@Matt McIrvin: Cassettes! Underground metal bands started releasing cassette only albums around 2010 cause it was so hard/expensive to get records pressed. If you’re a person now that has an old tape deck, walkman you can definitely it for real money these days. The kids love cassettes.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: My FIL gave me his entire collection of old Hindi movie cassettes. I still have them. I play them too. I have an old SONY boombox and a walkman!
NotMax
@Brachiator
Waitin’ for wax cylinders to return to vogue.
:)
BlueGuitarist
@PaulB:
Yes! I love Playing for Change. Many great songs!
mvr
@raven: Props for that. My first was in Seattle ath the first of two Kindome shows in 1981 after sleeping out on the pavement for Stadium seating. Greg Kihn (who wasn’t half bad) and J Geils (also good) opened. The main trick was timing the last bathroom break before the Stones came on and then getting as far towards the front as I could. This was back in the days when they made the audience wait.
mvr
@OldDave: Thanks for letting me know. I like Jason Isbell as a person. Vampires is just a killer song. Makes me sad he’s getting divorced.
mvr
@BretH: David Bromberg is/was a hell of a musician. I saw him open for the Grateful Dead in the 70s and he was the best part of that show. (Last time I said something to this effect all the deadheads on facebook ganged up on me, but I figure this is a classier place than facebook.)
cain
@mvr: hilariously Greg Kihn is an author and wrote a few horror movies and a fictional story about the Beatles.
‘In 2013, Kihn released Rubber Soul, a murder mystery novel featuring the Beatles.’
Incidently my favorite song from Kihn is The Breakup Song.
mvr
@Craig: Damn. That’s good! Saw the next one with Dylan in 87. But not this. Mike Campbell and TP were one hell of a two guitar lineup. Even with a broken hand.
SoupCatcher
Keyboarding was a required first year high school class in the mid eighties. Started off on manual until the teacher was satisfied with the arch of the finger and the direction of the stroke and then was moved to Selectric IIs. I think I still have some of the typewriter art assignments. The school had five or six electronic typewriters that would store one line before committing it to the paper, and the best typists graduated to the electronic room.
One of my most impactful high school classes. And I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound of a roomful of Selectric IIs played with enthusiasm.
Brachiator
@cain:
I loved geometry. Was a geometry whiz. But I was bored by shop class, because actually making shit, as opposed to design, was stupid.
My younger brother used to make wonderful stereo speakers as a hobby. He had a great understanding of electronics and acoustics.
My mother was a math teacher and all is kids seemed to have inherited variations of math knowledge.
My niece loved division, but hated multiplication when she was a student.
Another brother is a musician and can talk about music as a variation of mathematics. He is also a good lyricist. My mother also got some of her poetry published when she was in college.
cain
@S Cerevisiae:
Now we are talking ! Rush has undeniably some.of the best live shows .. of course it is a cult band so a lot audience participation.
Their last tour clockwork angels was a great send off.
frosty
@raven: I can’t remember the first concert I saw but it wasn’t until I left for college. My parents weren’t going to let me out for something like that. Some of my high school friends saw the Beatles in Baltimore in ’66 but I wasn’t one of them. :-(
The first one might have been something at the Wash at Pomona freshman year, but definitely by sophomore. Eric Burdon and War come to mind. Also Michael Nesmith, so that must have been First National Band.Then a bunch more concerts followed that.
cain
You can tell what generation this crowd is since no one has mentioned Taylor Swift yet. 😂
cain
@Brachiator: talented family!
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: My daughter is also aesthetically interested in manual typewriters.
I’m fascinated by old calculating devices, slide rules and mechanical calculators and older gadgets, but she’s not so into those due to a lack of interest in math. We don’t have the room in this place to really indulge a collecting bug so I have thus far resisted the temptation to order a lot of treasures on eBay.
Matt McIrvin
@cain: We talked a lot about Taylor Swift in previous music threads. My other niece not previously mentioned on this page is the big Swiftie.
Timill
@Matt McIrvin: https://fancyclopedia.org/Kolektinbug
“If you are bitten by the Kolektinbug, you will turn into a collector, and then you will need a bigger house.”
Kelly
@Matt McIrvin: I’m a terrible typist. Same with trying to play music. My fingers do not move quickly or accurately. Piano lessons in grade school and a typing class in high school were useless. Fortunately a cousin my age lived in an adjacent dorm at the U of Oregon. He had a correcting selectric I could use. I was still slow and awkward but correcting was so easy. I typed a couple short 2 pagers while he listened. When I showed up with a 10 pager he couldn’t stand it. Cousin Ken could typed 85 words a minute while he corrected my spelling. He typed papers for me the whole way through. I still thank him in front of the whole family 50 years later.
Matt McIrvin
And my beloved spouse’s wind band has played several times on a multiple bill at Faneuil Hall’s Festival of Bands that used to be introduced by our own efgoldman. Usually the same day as Pride so the atmosphere downtown is particularly festive.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ve never seen younger YouTubers pay much attention to the movie “Yellow Submarine.”
I was a pre-teen when the Beatles burst on the American scene, and grew up with the rise of the British scene, Motown and variations of soul music.
Youngsters seem to be dipping in with no firm historical reference, just following the tunes they like. But as noted, the use of music in a movie or TV show provides a convenient hook.
ETA. I probably saw the Yellow Submarine movie along the way, but regularly watched the Beatles cartoon show on TV. I ain’t proud. But it was fun.
cain
@Matt McIrvin: I absolutely hated manual typewriters because I was hyper and so I kept jamming the strikers. So annoying.
John Revolta
Well, I went to see Blind Faith, and opening up for them were Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and playing in that band were Carl Radle, Jim Gordon and Bobby Whitlock, who Clapton promptly nicked to form Derek and the Dominoes. Then I went to see Derek and the Dominoes, and opening up for them was some guy nobody had ever heard of before named Elton John.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: I have used log tables more than a slide rule. I still miss my old casio scientific calculator which gave up the ghost a few years ago.
For my highschool physics class we were not allowed to use a calculator or a slide rule. I got pretty good at estimating answers. I am a bit out of practice on that now.
danielx
J. Geils Band opening for Rod Stewart at IU Assembly Hall; they blew Rod off the stage. Came back as headliners the following year.
Brachiator
@NotMax:
Apple iWax.
John Revolta
@S Cerevisiae: Oh yeah, at the Blind Faith/ Delaney and Bonnie show the first act was a band called “Taste” which was Rory Gallagher’s first band. I ran out the next day and bought their album!
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: I was just young enough that affordable pocket calculators were appearing on the market when I started to learn arithmetic, and scientific calculators were there by the time I needed them, so the slide-rule era was always a vanished age to me.
But for a while I had my dad’s slide rule, a bamboo-core Post/Hemmi chemical engineer’s rule with a lot of incomprehensible scales. I had an ambition to learn how to use it eventually, but it turns out one whole side of that thing was specialized chemistry scales for things like vapor pressure and molar density that were only on that one model. It had that instead of trigonometry!
My first calculator was a model Dad had bought and liked so much that he got me one–one of the earliest affordable scientific calculators, a mid-70s Omron with big round buttons and a green vacuum fluorescent display. I used it well into high school–it was pretty power-hungry, ran on AAs, and the VFD was fragile enough that it broke when I dropped it one too many times sometime in the 80s. After that I was using Sharps for a while, then switched to the really fancy HPs that ran RPL, still one of my favorite oddball programming languages.
cain
@danielx:
Eric Johnson opened for Rush in the 90s and he was amazing. The guy next me was jumping up and down and kept shoving his binoculars at me asking me to look! Look! After that set they left depressed 😂
Origuy
My friend Steve has two very talented daughters. Natalie Haas is a well-known Celtic cellist who usually performs with world famous Scottish violinist Alasdair Frasier. Her sister Brittany Haas usually plays fiddle and sometimes banjo with various bluegrass bands. Here they are together.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
This sounds like a wonderful treasure trove. I hope the cassettes are in good condition.
pieceofpeace
Time for some travelin’ with the Wilbury guys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o4s1KVJaVA
John Revolta
@danielx: Geils opened for everybody back in the 70s. I saw them a bunch of times and they were a tough act to follow. The Stones probably pulled it off; but then the Stones always booked great opening acts. When I saw them they had the Neville Brothers open up. Damn!
Quinerly
@cope:
Fun fact. My first concert was in Greensboro, NC. The Monkees. 1967. Hendrix opened. It was the second show in NC after Charlotte. My teenaged musician cousin took me. We drove from Greenville, NC. I was madly in love with Mickey Dolenz. I still have the program. It’s a prized possession.
I was 6 years old.
I again saw the Monkees in 1986. Definitely a different “experience.”
Robin
I live in Seattle and was a little old for the grunge movement but a lot of affection for it. One of my favorite things was an exhibit at EMP, now Mo Pop, that is a family tree of Pacific Northwest bands, who played in what band and what other bands they went to – and it had space for visitors to add to the tree. I was just looking at the website to see if it’s still there and I can’t tell. But I love the interconnections and history
Quinerly
@cain:
I absolutely adore the Darryl and Neil pairing. Love their pics together. She’s an interesting chick….from Jackson Brown, to JFK Jr., to true happiness with Neil.
Quinerly
@laura: saw Pablo Cruz in undergrad at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. 1979. My 8track tape is here somewhere😉.
Quinerly
@John Revolta:
I am a huge Peter Wolf (briefly Mr. Faye Dunaway) fan from J Geils. He’s still touring. His last 3 solo albums are excellent. Puts on a great show.
Quinerly
@pieceofpeace:
Such a great album. I still play it a couple of times a month all these years later.
Quinerly
@John Revolta:
Saw Bonnie a few years back (around 2007) in St. Louis at The Sheldon. She was promoting a solo album. She’s originally from the St. Louis area. Robbie Montgomery opened for her. My a bit older boyfriend at the time got the tickets for the show. He had briefly dated Bonnie when she was young, playing the East St. Louis club scene. (She was the only White Ikette for a few shows). He and I made it back stage, and she remembered him. Pretty cool. Her last solo albums have been great. Her daughter, Bekka, was with Fleetwood Mac for a bit when Stevie Nicks left in the 1990’s.
Laura
@swiftfox:
@prostratedragon:
@prostratedragon: i don’t listen to that much of Janis Siegel solo but love her as a member of The Manhattan Transfer.
frosty
@schrodingers_cat: Slide rules for me the whole way through HS and college; I didn’t get a calculator until after I graduated.
Your point on estimating is good. Even with a slide rule you had to be good at estimating the order of magnitude. All the slide rule would give you is two or three digits with no help on where to put the decimal.
terben
Might be an unpopular opinion, but I still listen to early Fleetwood Mac and I can listen to Christine Perfect era tracks, but lost all interest when Buckingham/Nicks joined. They just ruined the band.
Quinerly
@terben: not unpopular opinion with me. Their early stuff was their best stuff.
El Muneco
The pinnacle of Mick Fleetwood’s career was playing an old Mick Fleetwood in a 2018 dystopian America in _The Running Man_. “They burned my songs…” – how draconian does a junta have to be in order to burn _Fleetwood Mac_ music as subversive?
I will die on this hill.
NWO Joe
@frosty: I have some vinyl that was digitized at high bitrate, and it sounds great. I love that stuff; it is much less trouble to play than the vinyl… I remember the Discwasher, and the ionizer thingy you had to spray to get the static off, and then the stylus would get worn and it would sound dull. And vinyl does wear after a few hundred plays. These vinyl rips I have are with new or near new discs and excellent equipment. I have a nice stereo in my newer Subaru and they sound wonderful cranked up loud on road trips.
Mine are Buckingham/Nicks, FM self titled, Rumours, and Tusk. I also have that other one that was older, with that naked fellow riding and not looking where he is going (Then Play On). Wonderful music!
Spanky
Here’s a Midnight Special from 1974 with a band called Genesis and some weird singer in face paint. Voice sounds familiar, though.
Captain C
@cain:
100% agree. I’ve seen them, I think, 9 times, starting with Madison Square Garden in 1987 and the last two in Newark and then MSG on their final R40 tour. All were varying degrees of amazing.
Captain C
I saw Fairport Convention open for Jethro Tull in New Haven in 1987. Both bands put on great shows. I also saw Megadeth open for Judas Priest (Testament opened the show) in Worcester, MA, in 1990. They were so good they did an encore and my friends and I thought it was great that Priest would bring an opener that would blow them (Priest) off the stage. About a minute into the Priest set, we all realized how wrong we were; they were even better!
Sandia Blanca
I was at the infamous 1973 Who concert at the Cow Palace in Daly City, CA. Keith Moon passed out twice during the performance, so the question went out, “Can anyone here play the drums?” And some guy came up on stage and filled in for poor Keith.
The opening act was someone we’d never heard of, called Lynyrd Skynyrd! Nov 20, 1973: The Who with opening act Lynyrd Skyynyrd at The Cow Palace Daly City, California, United States | Concert Archives
BretH
@Spanky: some weird singer a.k.a. Peter Gabriel with backing vocals from drummer Phil Collins 🙂
Spanky
@BretH: Yep! Had never seen them together before. Can’t say that’s my kind of music, although it’s now clearer to me how he got to the Sledgehammer video.
Everybody was so young back then.
BretH
@Spanky: There’s a cool video of Phish playing that song when Genesis was welcomed to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
https://youtu.be/JlrMQmrMKzw?si=1sodPDKgCMmMFX_6
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: you’re referring to me, I assume!
hitchhiker
We saw Gil Scott Heron in Seattle in the mid-80s. Unforgettable guy.
My favorite concerts now are Tedeschi Trucks band, but only because Leonard Cohen is gone. That guy could hold a room in his hand.
glc
@lowtechcyclist:
Not to take a stand one way or the other, but I’m fond of this performance of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.
https://youtu.be/6SFNW5F8K9Y
trollhattan
Tom Petty’s biographer talks about Tom, the writing process, and Tom’s love or the perfect cup of Maxwell House.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/tom-petty-s-biographer-on-the-story-he-didn-t-tell
The writer opened for the Heartbreakers long before becoming his biographer.
BlueGuitarist
@Mousebumples:
My favorite version of Crazy Little Thing Called Love:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcjnvW6fq1U
Josh Turner does all the parts
Jacel
@BretH: Since being at that Bromberg concert, do you still have bullfrogs on your mind?
BlueGuitarist
@Quinerly:
The Onion article about Peter Wolf:
Peter Wolf, a pitiful, has-been rock musician who hasn’t had a platinum record since 1981, has now spent more than 40 happy years doing exactly what he always wanted, reports confirmed this week. “It’s so sad to see that guy still out on tour after all this time,” a source said of the washed-up loser who has been able to walk out on a stage multiple nights a week for more than four decades and play music of his own creation while being cheered on enthusiastically by a paying audience.
https://www.theonion.com/pathetic-washed-up-rock-star-on-fifth-decade-of-doing-1819577132
NotMax
@BlueGuitarist
His middle name isn’t Andthe by any chance?
//
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: I love the coffee story.
Quinerly
@BlueGuitarist: 😁
Maybe be can entice Al Kooper out of retirement. He can be Kooper’s inspiration.
Kidding aside check out Peter’s albums “Sleepless” and “Midnight Souvenirs.” Merle Haggard makes an appearance on the latter. And Mick and Keith show up on “Sleepless.”
David T
@mvr: When we saw Tom Petty years ago in Milwaukee Summerfest the opening band was Pearl Jam!
brantl
When did Morning Joe become such an alum-packed asshole? Both him and Mika are a pair of shitsticks.
Steve Stuart Stonestacker
Small world. I was also at the Wabash college Johnny Winter concert. The And part of the act was from my tiny home town. My young innocent high school self was shocked at the albino skeleton covered in tattos playing the shit out of his guitar. Sometime in the seventies I saw Stevie Wonder open for the Stones at Indianapolis. I don’t know if it was racism or just general midwest dumbassery but some of the crowd was trying to boo him off the stage to get to the Stones. No accounting for taste, I guess.
tam1MI
Fun fact about DIFFERENT DRUM: It was written by one Michael Nesmith, who’s most famous gig was with a TV band of some renown named after simians. 😉😉😉
I must be the young’un here, my first concert was Devo in n their New Traditionalist tour. One of the best I’ve ever seen.
les
The oddest set that my (increasingly untrustworthy) memory serves up is Black Oak Arkansas opening for Iron Butterfly. 2 excellent sets but a real gear change in the middle.
Nancy
@frosty: Agreed. Those were what I used to hear on free-form FM late at night. Before the corporate takeover. The announcers could create their own playlists that might be an entire side. Early musical education.
Nancy
@Matt McIrvin: yes Perfect not only in name.
Nancy
@swiftfox: Yes I think it’s beautiful and haunting.