Let’s get a little chatter going! Most of you know this drill by now, but if you’ve been following along from the sidelines and want to make your initial splash in the Halls of Rock the following questions require nothing more than your gut answers! There’s no better way to jump into the fray! Nobody’s an expert!
What do you consider John Cale‘s main instrument?
Does anyone but American artists write telephone number songs (eg, Tommy Tutune’s lone hit)? I can only think of song titles by American artists with 7-digit numbers.
If tv actor Ted McGinley is the “patron saint of shark-jumping,” who’s his rock ‘n roll equivalent?
Do you tend to favor “dry” or “wet” production? (NOTE: The answer “It depends” is not acceptable.)
Granted production will play into our answers, but what artist typically projects the most “arid” sound and what artist typically projects the most “humid” sound? Care to explain?
Moebius or Roedelius?
What does the answer to the previous question say about one if one answered Conny Plank?
I look forward to your answers.
John Cale’s main instrument?
Viola
Does anyone but American artists write telephone number songs (eg, Tommy Tutune’s lone hit)? I can only think of song titles by American artists with 7-digit numbers.
Do phone numbers have 7 digits in other countries? Maybe it’s a cadence thing.
If tv actor Ted McGinley is the “patron saint of shark-jumping,” who’s his rock ‘n roll equivalent?
Rick Rubin.
Do you tend to favor “dry” or “wet” production?
Dry
what artist typically projects the most “arid” sound and what artist typically projects the most “humid” sound?
To me this just means wet and dry. Off the top of my head I’ll say Spoon is arid and CCR is humid but I might just be picking CCR because they’re always singing about bayous and such.
As for the last two questions, I looked up the words “Moebius”, “Roedelius” and “Conny Plank” on wikipedia and I still have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.
I like the fact that you answered CCR for “humid” sound, cdm. To my ears their productions are pretty dry, but you heard something wetter in the songs and arrangements.
Yeah, upon further reflection, I would have to say My Morning Jacket or Daniel Lanois, if we’re strictly talking about wet production.
My point about CCR is that they’re always singing about riverboats and green rivers and wondering if we’ve ever seen the rain and, if so, who’s going to stop it. So if we’re not talking about just production, CCR’s lyrics invoke humidity to me.
1. Viola
2. They used to on the island: check 54-46 (That’s My Number)
3. Bono
4. Dry
5. Arid: Calexico Humid: any seventies Lee Perry
6. Moebius
7. You´ve read Krautrocksampler.
cdm, for the arid/humid question I was definitely hoping for answers that reached for something more obvious than “extreme use of reverb” (or lack thereof). I found your CCD answer promising. Same goes for ramone666’s Lee Perry answer for an overall humid sound.
Nice answer to #7, ramone666!
What do you consider John Cale’s main instrument?
violin
Does anyone but American artists write telephone number songs (eg, Tommy Tutune’s lone hit)? I can only think of song titles by American artists with 7-digit numbers.
no
If tv actor Ted McGinley is the “patron saint of shark-jumping,” who’s his rock ‘n roll equivalent?
Paul Rodgers.
Do you tend to favor “dry” or “wet” production? (NOTE: The answer “It depends” is not acceptable.)
Wet Wet Wet!
Granted production will play into our answers, but what artist typically projects the most “arid” sound and what artist typically projects the most “humid” sound? Care to explain?
Ramones are arid.
Jimi Hendrix is humid.
I can’t explain.
Moebius or Roedelius?
Moebius. I don’t know who that other guy is.
What does the answer to the previous question say about one if one answered Conny Plank?
I don’t know what this is either.
54-46 (That’s My Number)is a prison number, not a phone number. Toots is singing about his prison stint for marijuana possession. Also, two bands named after phone numbers: BR5-49 and 999, which is the equivalent of 911 in England and several other countries.
1. Viola
2. I keep thinking I saw a phone number as the title of a song recently, but it escapes me.
3. Rock’s Ted McGinley? This needs further reflection.
4. Dry production, which means a live in the studio sound to my ears.
5. Arid, to me, is AC/DC’s “Back in Black”, especially when listening on headphones. Humid? Dunno.
6. That’s beyond my ken.
7. Connie Mack.
When I listen to Back in Black I see a band in a white room, I can visual their placement, and there is nothing extraneous added to the mix. There’s breathing space between the instruments, which I think most music today misses–maybe that’s a function of today’s artists having infinite tracks one can lay down and the overly compressed production styles so prevalent now.
And the telephone number song by a non-American band is Squeeze, “853-5937”
The McGinley question is a tough one, isn’t it? I keep reviewing possibilities from the King Crimson/Roxy Music/Yes scene, but it’s hard to determine which of the typical add-on musicians spells the downfall of these bands.
Eddie Jobson joined Roxy Music for maybe their strongest period, but he was also a late add to a number of other prog/art rock bands on the decline. Didn’t we just read, for instance, that he almost joined Yes?
John Wetton is sure to show up in any crumbling prog/art rock band, but he frequently injects new life.
Andy Newmark was a late add to both Sly and the Family Stone and Roxy Music, but he’s more of a studio cat and his membership in a band is more akin to being sent in by HR to help close shop. His presence, in other words, is associated with closing shop but is not the cause of it. I don’t know, though, was McGinley a consistently second-rate hire or was he sent in by HR?
What do you consider John Cale’s main instrument?
Viola and sunglasses.
Does anyone but American artists write telephone number songs (eg, Tommy Tutune’s lone hit)? I can only think of song titles by American artists with 7-digit numbers.
I bet some old-school ska bands wrote songs of this nature, though I can’t think of any.
If tv actor Ted McGinley is the “patron saint of shark-jumping,” who’s his rock ‘n roll equivalent?
Waddy Wachtel
Do you tend to favor “dry” or “wet” production? (NOTE: The answer “It depends” is not acceptable.)
Wet
Granted production will play into our answers, but what artist typically projects the most “arid” sound and what artist typically projects the most “humid” sound? Care to explain?
Arid: James Brown
Humid: Roger Waters
Moebius or Roedelius?
Klein (of bottle fame). (Top THAT, Mod!)
What does the answer to the previous question say about one if one answered Conny Plank?
One smells of fish and eggs.
1. viola
2. Does “999”, the British version of 9-1-1, count?
3. David Coverdale (Paul Rodgers is a good answer in this vein)
4. Dry
5. Dry is highly produced, clear and sharp to me so someone like Karl Wallinger. Wet is thick, low and muddy like most good reggae and soul so Sly & Robbie
I occasionally like the contrast when reggae is done with crystal production like the Police or when cerebral music is blurred in production like shoegaze or Sonic Youth. When this is done poorly it can be a wreck.
6. & 7. No idea. The reference to Krautrock points me to that Julian Cope site linked at the left. Maybe later.
You´re right on Toots & his prison number of course, Bostonhistorian. Thanks, my bad.
Telephone songs: cdm is probaly right, the US phone number pattern probably has a cadence that works better as the chorus/title. Might be why a lot of the phone number title songs have a 7 in them, since the extra syllable lets you change up the pattern.
Consider “634-5789” and “Beechwood 4-5478” (234-5789) and it seems clear that “345789” is a pattern that has secretly magic numerical powers, while 1 is both the loneliest and least musical number.
Anyway, songs about phones are/were still popular else where, just not in naming the songs. The closest the Beatles got was “You Know My Name”, but can think of at least 10 of their songs where phones come in to play, which is more than I would have guessed before this came up.
1. Piano.
2. There’s this:
“London’s burning with boredom now
London’s burning dial 99999″
But Brits usually just say “you know my name, look up the number.”
3. Don Was.
4. I’m tempted to say wet, because I do like reverb. But I don’t like muddy, so I’ll say dry.
5. Wet: Spiritualized, the Slits
Dry: (gonna go with producers here rather than artists) Martin Hannett, Steve Albini
6. Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. I just find it hard to believe that those are their actual names.
7. It means you probably know that Conny is not a woman.
1. John Cale’s main instrument:
I’m going to break from the pack and say piano(keyboards, in general), as he plays it much more often in his solo work than he does the viola, & in The VU he was still playing piano, organ & bass more often than viola. Also, I kind of doubt he composes on it, either.
2.Foreign equivalent to US ph # songs:
‘999 Emergency’ by Motorhead is the only one that comes to mind.
3.If tv actor Ted McGinley is the “patron saint of shark-jumping,” who’s his rock ‘n roll equivalent?
I’ll go with Sammy Hagar, I guess.
4.Do you tend to favor “dry” or “wet” production? (NOTE: The answer “It depends” is not acceptable.)
Wet.
5.Granted production will play into our answers, but what artist typically projects the most “arid” sound and what artist typically projects the most “humid” sound? Care to explain?
Arid: Prince
Humid: Parliament-Funkadelic
One’s the sound of a one man band (I mean the best known of his studio output, of course), the other a large group collaboration, gettin’ down & gettin’ sweat-aay!
6.Moebius or Roedelius?
Rother
7.What does the answer to the previous question say about one if one answered Conny Plank?
You know way more about krautrock than I. He worked with both, together and separately, but what that means is beyond my limited frame of reference.
“But Brits usually just say “you know my name, look up the number.””
Or, if you’re the Undertones, “you’ve got my number….why don’t you use it?”
BigSteve, I thought I had the patron saint of rock shark-jumping nailed with Waddy Wachtel. But I do believe you earned the RTH No-Prize with Don Was!
I’m nominating Steve Vai for shark jumper.
1980-82 plays with Frank Zappa
1985 replaces Yngwie Malmsteen as guitarist in some band called Alcatrazz
1985 joins up with post Van Halen David Lee Roth
1986 plays on Public Image Limited’s album “Album”
1986 rejoins Zappa’s band
1987-88 back to David Lee Roth
1989 joins Whitesnake
circa 1990 plays on Alice Cooper’s “Hey Stoopid”
1994 writes and records with Ozzy Osbourne, only to have his guitar parts replaced by Zakk Wylde (that must have really hurt)
post 1994 gives up on other people’s bands and goes solo, culminating in an appearance on American Idol in 2010 playing Stairway to Heaven backing Mary J. Blige.
He’s jumped the shark so many times Damien Hirst took inspiration from him.
bostonhistorian, you have made a tremendous case for Vai as McGinley! I had no idea of all the shark-jumping he caused. Wachtel and Was were also strong nominations that I hadn’t seen until now. I thought about Hagar this afternoon, while listening to Jayson Werth’s walk-up tune at today’s Phils-Cardinals game.
I, too, think of Cale as a piano player more than any other instrument, including his notorious viola.
Glad to know there are at least 3 phone number songs written by Brits! alexmagic, your in-depth analysis on the subject was fascinating, as ever.
What do you consider John Cale’s main instrument?
A studio baord.
Does anyone but American artists write telephone number songs (eg, Tommy Tutune’s lone hit)? I can only think of song titles by American artists with 7-digit numbers.
Keith Richards has a song called 999, which is the emergency number in England, like 911 here. He lives in Connecticut, why did he do that?
If tv actor Ted McGinley is the “patron saint of shark-jumping,” who’s his rock ‘n roll equivalent?
Paul Rodgers
Do you tend to favor “dry” or “wet” production? (NOTE: The answer “It depends” is not acceptable.)
Dry, I think. Whatever Jimmy Miller’s style was.
Granted production will play into our answers, but what artist typically projects the most “arid” sound and what artist typically projects the most “humid” sound? Care to explain?
Heavy metal in general has that thick, humid sound that sounds like a million dollars. New major label bands, like Nickelback have it, too. Even their distortion sounds cleaned up and free of any distortion. The Stones used to have a dry sound, but nowadays, they sound like Nickelback. But we’ve always got Exile and Beggars Banquet to reming us what music sounds like.
Moebius or Roedelius?
What are you talking about?
What does the answer to the previous question say about one if one answered Conny Plank?
How the hell should I know?
I should add that Steve Vai also managed to jump the shark in another medium: he played opposite Ralph Macchio in Ralph Macchio’s post-Karate Kid shark jump, Crossroads. It’s one thing to have Zakk Wylde replace your guitar parts, it’s another to have Ralph Macchio beat you in a movie guitar duel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0QKbnCDW94&feature=related
Cale’s main instrument would be the guitar. Or Eric Clapton. (I’m very funny, see?)
I’m a Memphis guy, so I like mine dry.
A strong case has been made for Vai, but I’ll offer up the late, GREAT Michael Kamen.
Arid: Rick Rubin, Humid: Jim Dickinson.
TB
‘But we’ve always got Exile and Beggars Banquet to remind us what music sounds like…’
Amen brother 2000!
Oh and wet. With a twist.