Ladies and gentlemen, it’s that time again: the RTH speed round known as Dugout Chatter. All we ask is that you provide gut answers to the following would-be burning questions. If you’re new to these parts, this is a great time to jump in and get your feet wet. If you’ve been around forever, your voice must be heard. Who knows, maybe one of our old friends like Happiness Stan or tonyola will resurface?
Have you ever been at a show and realized, as you let out a hoot, that you might be the only person in the audience who has identified the cover song the band on stage just launched into?
Have you ever yelled an insult at an artist from the audience? Be honest.
While we’re being honest, be honest: how often do you illegally download music these days, not downloading an occasional track from a blog, but scouring the Web for bit torrents, .rar files, and the like? Once a week? Once a month? A couple of times a year? For those of you whose answers you wish to keep anonymous, you may answer in the handy-dandy RTH poll.
Loading ...I love thinking about arrangements; a great arrangement can save a turd of a song, as I believe is the case with The Beatles’ “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” Is it possible the band pulled on their goofy arrangement for the B-side “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)” as a template for their Abbey Road song, or is that a common arrangement device, in which a theme is run through numerous permutations?
I often regret that no new band has satisfied my jonesin’ for an actual Talking Heads reunion and continued productive career. Everyone tells me I need to pick up some LCD Soundsystem, but I don’t know…I just don’t hear the songs and distinctive point of view whenever I try them. The only song that ever stands out to me is “North American Scum” (I think that’s the name), and why shouldn’t it? The music is an excellent rip-off of Pete Shelley’s “Homosapien.” Long question short: What void left by a long-gone artist do you most wish a new artist would step up and fill?
You probably know by now how much Philadelphia Pride I possess. I make all sorts of allowances for Philadelphia culture short of taking the time to watch that OSCAR-nominated movie from last year in which Bradley Cooper wears a Hefty bag and enters a dance contest, but I can’t get my head around the music of The Roots. They seem like great guys, etc, but I’ve yet to hear one song by them that I fully enjoy. Which killer Roots song have I not come across yet?
I look forward to your responses.
Yes – I have deifnitely realized this. The (very good) cover band I play in “Narband” played with another band last summer who played Televison’s “See no Evil” – actually Townsman Sethro was with me and he knew it too. But I don’t think anyone else did.
Yes – i ampretty sure I have insulted bands from the audience. Hell, I’ve insulted my bandmates WHILE on stage.
I don’t buy the I Want You/You KNow My Name link. I want you switches back and forth between two themes. You Know My Name keeps on changing.
I no longer download illegally. Haven’t since the early 2000’s. I leave the dirty work up to my kids and don’t ask any questions 🙂
Good point re: speculation over the arrangement link. I hadn’t stopped to analyze before asking the question. Sometimes, in Dugout Chatter, even the questions come from the gut, or ass, in this case.
1) I don’t yell out when I recognize a band has launched into a cover, but I lock eyes with whichever person in the band is coolest and nod knowingly, assuming that he/she will see me, think “This guy gets it!” and we’ll then become best friends.
2) No insults from me. I’d probably do it if I got free tickets to a Mike Love Beach Boys show, though.
3) As someone who was the right age to partake just as it started to become impossibly easy to steal music, I can honestly say I don’t illegally download anything with the possible exception of really difficult to find, out-of-print older albums. I follow music all too well to not be familiar with the lousy deal artists get now, and I’m just not willing to take money off people I like as an adult. The outlier here is something like Spotify, which is practically like helping rip off the artists, as there have been a few albums by bands I like where I legally listened to a new album I was interested in and ended up not buying the album after hearing it.
4) “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” would be the immediate successor to “You Know My Name…”, wouldn’t it? Someone more aware of how music actually works than I am might be able to work through whether “Dear Prudence” and “Hey Jude” – fellow 1967-1968 products – fall into the same continuum of changing the musical approach every time you pass through the same set of lyrics.
5) I don’t know if Ferry/Eno count as “long gone artists” in the spirit of the question, but I’m starting to feel like there’s never going to be a revival movement based on the early the Roxy Music sound, even though it’s the one I want.
6) Maybe give “The Next Movement” a shot. I dunno, Mod – and I assume you know that when I say this, I mean it in a supportive way – I’d need to do a serious exploration of your post-1983 musical tastes to unpack some things enough to advise you on hip-hop recommendations.
Your answer to #5 would also suffice for me, Magic Man!
As for #6, maybe we need to get together and record an analysis session for a future Saturday Night Shut-In – or we could correspond offline and post the dialog.
I will share that just a couple of days ago I LEGALLY bought a few of the tracks from my 25 Acceptable Mainstream Characteristically ’80s Songs list that you fine people helped me compile. Tonight I expect to load my first 2 New Order songs onto my iPod as well as a second Cure song. Growth, my friends.
Mod, I don’t think the arrangement of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” saves the song. It is the song. I don’t think the Beatle brain trust sat around staring at the lyrics trying to figure out how to rescue a song of such limited scope. I have to think it was all about the sound of the thing from the beginning. There, now you have my two cents’ worth.
Yes — A couple times involving Patti Smith. First was when she encored with “Not Fade Away” & other concert goers thought it was a Grateful Dead cover. Next, my partner dragged me to the Lilith Fair, at which Jewel performed. She launched into a cover of “Dancing Barefoot” that was truly inspired. The audience seemed to have no clue. I could not decide if’n her covering that song was a good or bad thang.
Saw the American Music Club on their reunion tour about 10 years ago, and between songs I kept yelling out the name of the bass player’s other band Clodhopper. Mark Eitzel, finally said “I got your Clodhopper right here!” and proceeded to dazzle the crowd with a truly awful unaccompanied guitar solo.
Not sure if’n this is an insult or not, but the last time that I saw Blue Oyster Cult, I must have yelled “More cowbell!” at least a dozen times.
Don’t really download illegally these daze, per se. If’n there is a track or album that I have to have & I cannot find it on Rhapsody, Spotify, Amazon or iTunes, I will find it on youtube & use a conversion site to turn it into an mp3. Perhaps once or twice a month.
I thank that it is a common arrangement device. Bowie & Zappa, to name but two, have numerous different arrangements for many of their songs.
Speaking of Zappa… I keep waiting for someone to fills those shoes. Having my doubts…
This is should solve your Roots issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojC0mg2hJCc
Let out a hoot when identifying a cover song:
I’m probably guilty of the act but not aware that I was the only one.
Have you ever yelled an insult at an artist from the audience?
My friend was a drummer and on stage, he used to take his shirt off after the first song of a set. When he did, I would usually yell “Put your shirt on.” Does that count? Sidebar: This same friend and I were in the audience of a Leaving Trains show in the early ‘90’s when the bass player took his shirt off. My friend seized the opportunity to see what it felt like to be the heckler rather than the hecklee and he yelled “Put your shirt on”. The bass player countered the heckle by taking off all of his clothes and playing the rest of the set buck naked. He was playing a Steinberger bass so little was left to the imagination, aside from “Hmmm, it doesn’t feel that cold in here…”
How often do you illegally download music these days?
I will receive stolen goods but I don’t actually steal them myself.
What void left by a long-gone artist do you most wish a new artist would step up and fill? None. I don’t go to many shows and I can listen to the long gone artists’ records.
Which killer Roots song have I not come across yet? I also need some sort of annotated guide to the Roots.
Cover song? Yes, but only because the “obscure” cover was just an old song I liked and had listened to all my life.
Insults? Yes! Loverboy opened for ZZTop and we had 2nd row, center. You could hear the entire first few rows screaming so loud, that in between songs the mic’s picked us up! Loverboy was pissed!
Illegal downloads? Yeah, if the download card doesn’t work right or it comes in some format my car doesn’t understand. But I always buy the record first.
Arrangements? Good songs don’t need nice arrangements, and bad songs just suck anyway.
Long gone? I was gonna say I’d like to hear some cool rockabilly kinda rock n roll, but JD McPherson stepped up and filled it, so now I need to think of something else.
Roots? Jimmy Fallon’s band? Who cares?
Cover Song? Yes.
Insult? Yes. I believe I yelled one out Saturday night.
Illegal Downloads? Not really except for trolling for some obscure, unavailable things on Blogs.
I’m still waiting for someone to fill the void that Television left after the first 7 songs of its debut album. Although bands occasionally touch on the approach, nobody come close to the quality and depth of those songs. A particular disappointment is the fact that Television itself never really came close.
You know my Name was just a piece of leftover goofing, gussied up and assembled to fill a B-side. I’ll defend I Want You as a song: Doesn’t it perfectly capture the bizarrely obsessive nature of Lennon’s relationship with Yoko at the time?
I bought the Roots album Phrenology, which included The Seed, recommended by jeangray above, but it didn’t grab me at all. While I like that song, I think it’s mostly because of Cody ChesnuTT, who wrote and sings it. I prefer his version on “The Headphone Masterpiece”, an album which I’ve listened to 50 times more than Phrenology.
1. Mr. Royale is better at recognizing incongruous covers than me. However, I once wrote here about one semi-recent episode, when we went to see Tame Impala and they closed by doing a rendition of Massive Attack’s “Angel.” We just about wet our pants, we were so excited and floored. I don’t think anyone else noticed (our pee and were able to identify the song), but then again, the quantity of mary jane in the air may have contributed.
2. I’m not an insulter, I’m more of a cheerleader.
3. Mr. Royale is the one who trawls the web for music; I’m just the abetter. Too many friends are musicians and I hear about their squawking about illegal downloads so I don’t partake.
4. If I’m understanding your question correctly (interconnected themes of music), I think it’s been going on since at least classical music times: a lot of composers have written/performed Variations on a Theme. Hayden was pretty well known for his Twinkle Twinkle Little Star version. I kind of like thematically related music.
5. Ah, a chance to gush about The Go-Betweens! After Grant McLennan died, Robert Forster released one last album of their co-written music but it didn’t move me: it lacked that beautiful interplay of their voices and the alternating of their songs individually written and performed songs. I miss The Go-Betweens tremendously, and although there are other folksy, intelligent, self-reflective rock bands out there, I have yet to find one that offers the interesting music, great lyrics and compelling vocals that The Go-Betweens demonstrated.
6. The Roots: I haven’t jumped on the bandwagon.
Zappa’s shoes should be thrown in an incinerator!
Ah, I keed! My 15-year-old son told me today that a friend of his has been trying to turn him onto Zappa, which is that boy’s dad’s favorite artist. I love this kid and his dad. I can see them digging Zappa. I asked my boy what he thought of the 10 songs his friends played him.
“He’s really funny, but I don’t really like his music.”
I suggested he watch Zappa interviews and cut out the music altogether – or find the Zappa songs that don’t have his jokey vocals so he can better appreciate the occasional cool music.
Yeah, Television’s on my list too. I still think the only really good follow up to those first 7 songs on Marquee Moon is Verlaine’s solo album Dreamtime. I still listen to the best 5 songs from that nearly as often as I do side 1 of the band’s debut.
I too discovered Cody Chestnutt through the Roots. I like what I’ve bought by him far better than the Roots’ own records. That song jeangray posted sounded like “college rock,” or something, like those faceless bands some of our friends liked in the ’80s: the Connells and whatnot with a touch of Terrence Trent D’Arby mixed in. It’s harmless, but the Cody Chestnutt songs I have develop into something weird and personal.
Possibly no band deserved that abuse more than Loverboy. Thank you, from my group of high school friends in Philadelphia.
That’s hilarious! His jokey vocals are one of my favorite aspects of Zappa’s Musik.
Upon further reflection, I can truly appreciate what cdm had to say below on the topic of filling voids. Really, once you stop going to shows, who can fill the void or why would you want anyone to, of a long gone, beloved musician?
1. Yeah, I always feel like the only one in the room when it comes to covers.
2. I’m not into insults. Unless it was some redneck country band.
3. Guilty on all counts. I’m a hunter-gatherer with an insatiable hunger for music. Eno called the internet a faucet we can turn on and have instant and free access to anything that has been documented.
4. The arrangement thing: It’s an artistic decision. If I paint someone in a particular pose, it doesn’t mean I can’t revisit/renew/repeat.
5. Okay, here’s a meaty subject, and one that deals with a lot of nostalgia and a desire for a particular essence. I would love to fall in musical love again, with any artist who could fill the promise and the unfinished void left by: “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts”, Nick Drake, Talk Talk, PJ’s “To Bring You My Love”, J Dilla, Chris Whitley, Tricky’s “Maxinquaye”, Sly Stone, “Psychocandy”, Marvin Gaye, The Wolfgang Press, Felt, Coltrane, …I could go on forever.
6. I agree with you Mod, and this could be the subject of a whole big discussion. I get easily frustrated and disappointed when there is no “there” there. Sometimes I call it the “Los Angeles Syndrome”, because you fall for the hype, and when you investigate it and immerse yourself in it, it’s “is that all there is?”
I feel this way about The Roots, whom I like, but I can’t put my finger on anything particular. I enjoy their musicianship, but they never seem to add up to the sum of their parts. I think ?uestlove kicks ass as an “in the pocket” drummer, but I appreciate him more on D’Angelo’s album more than I do in his own band. Perhaps they are best as session/studio musicians? I would have to say “The Seed” is my favorite by them, but I agree that credit goes to Cody Chestnutt.
There are a number of musicians who fall into this category. Jah Wobble’s playing on Metal Box is one of the centerpieces of my musical appreciation, but I’ve exhausted his subsequent work and mostly come up with a big “meh”. I love Marc Ribot, but I have to sift through a lot of shit before I land on something substantial.
For me the “filling the void” concept refers to artists who established a new vision of music, if you will, that no subsequent artists were able to pick up on. Maybe that’s the price of being original, but at some point someone first sounded like Elvis Presley or whoever, and many others followed. The Beatles started an approach to music that opened the doors to many other artists working in that extended vein, to levels of satisfaction. Artists like Elvis Costello and XTC, to name just 2, created highly “Beatle-esque” music that is as good as anything the originals ever did. Compare this to anyone who tries to sound like Talking Heads. They usually up sounding like a bad version of Talking Heads, often so bad that they make me wonder if I was ever right in liking Talking Heads to begin with.
Oh man, I agree about Jah Wobble’s playing with PiL. It so far surpasses anything else I’ve ever heard him play on. Perhaps no other musician has ever delivered a single performance that is so much better than anything else they ever would do.
1. Covers: I’m sure it has happened. I went to fringe fest play and they had a joke about female musicians named Kim: Kim Gordon, Kim Deal, Kim Thayil. I laughed and talked to a couple of the guys later and they said that 1 person per night gets that joke.
2. Insults: No, I don’t think so.
3. Downloads: No, not since the days of WinAmp
4. Beatles: Grafting two unfinished halves into one song is a good idea they worked successfully for a while.
5: New band filling the niche: Can’t come up with one. A good band creates and fills it’s own space. I’m not hearing that anymore but I’m not seeking it out either.
6. Roots: I’d like a knowledgeable intro as well. Here’s one more that I like outside the Cody Chestnutt one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWmu4-u80K4
I’ll play.
1. I’m not sure if this has happened to me. I think I thought of the question because it’s the kind of thing I’m on the lookout for happening. I would love to be standing in the crowd and be the only person who knows the cover of an obscure 101’ers or Roy Wood song, for instance.
2. Yes, I have a mean streak in me. I have booed bands. I’ve yelled the occasional catcall. I haven’t done so in years – kinder, wiser, gentler man that I am – but I figure if I can occasionally boo or yell an insult at a baseball player that I am obligated to do so at musicians who really piss me off.
I can’t remember if we actually yelled it at 2 bands we saw in Boston 1 night many moons ago, but chickenfrank will recall the significance of the phrase “Give me your contract!”
3. Probably 2 or 3 times a year I’ll illegally download something, usually for review or joking purposes, like finding a bad song to mix into a Rock Town Hall thread. Otherwise, I’m happy to spend about $15/month on new purchases for my library.
4-6. I stand by my questions.
He and Keith Levene did get together to do an album called “Yin & Yang” recently. It’s pretty good for a fix, but it’s loaded with all kinds of Lydon-ripoff vocals, and Wobble’s cockney rants.
I heard it and bought a few songs. They’re OK, but that’s a big drop off from “great.” Both of those guys should send Lydon an annual thank you card for ever giving any shape to their talents.
As a lad, I bought a defective copy of ‘Abbey Road’ and it had a retrograde skip in the middle of the guitar rave up at the end of ‘She’s So Heavy’. I played it for 25 minutes before I realized that feature was not in the actual arrangement…
One of my favorite indie productions of recent years is the viddy ‘Before the Music Dies’ which is a very cool review of the states of flux – including de-monitzation, conglomeration, homogenization and swillification of the music ‘industry’ (I love that concept and imaging giant smokestacks belching chord progressions).
One of the high points of that viddy and its bonus features is the extended interview with ?uestlove of the Roots.
One unsettling observation he makes is that in contrast to the history of rock – re: Funkadelic, Kool & the Gang, EW & F and all – the at that time, the Roots are the ONLY african-american BAND with a major label record contract. Not being a huge hip hop fan, I don’t even know if that’s true today…
I just discovered the full viddy of ‘Before the Music Dies’ is now viewable online at Andrew Shapter productions.
If you play or love music, WATCH IT TODAY!
God what a drag losing Billy Preston is…