I’m sending the above clip to Townsman Hrrundivbakshi, in particular. I think there’s much he will enjoy about it, or at least much he will enjoy analyzing.
Next, I will encourage HVB to comment and pass it on, posting a new video directed at another Townsperson—a performance he feels will hold particular appeal to that person.
That person will then comment and pass on a performance video to yet another Townsperson…
This is an exercise in knowing one’s fellow Townsperson. Challenge yourself! There’s probably some regular you’ve never met before that you know more about than you think.
If someone gets stuck down the line, I’ll gladly jostle the logjam by passing on another clip to a Townsperson who has not yet handled a passed-on clip. Others, of course, may comment on whatever clips are being passed along.
As we await HVB’s reaction to my gift, let me pass on another clip, this one directed at Bob Dylan fan misterioso.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj00tfJL1g4
misterioso, do you buy the “Dylan Motorcycle Crash” story? Much like the ZZ Top Livestock Tour, has there ever been a photo of Dylan’s busted-up motorcycle or police or hospital records made public?
I got a chance to watch this early this morning. I’m about to head into a meeting, but I’ll be back with my pay-forward video tag. In the meantime, a few observations:
1. I did indeed enjoy this video tremendously.
2. The song is catchy!
3. Awesome wardrobe, and BALLIN’ shoes!
4. Performing “naked” like that — no band, no props, no mic, for crying out loud — must be helluva hard thing to do. Jimmy delivers admirably.
5. This is from an era when every front man was expected to do his best imitation of James Brown, isn’t it? Like Mick Jagger at the TAMI show, Cliff races through every dance move he knows, trying to hit the ball out of the park. Mach schau, Jimmy Cliff!
6. Bravo!
I’ll be back later.
Cool! I figured this would register on your Mach Schau scale in one way or another.
I’m officially passing this on to Townsman Andyr, otherwise known as the Velvet Foghorn. Here you go, Velv — my greatest musical discovery (thanks to a generous holiday gift from Townsman Mockcarr) of the last year or two. Hailing from my beloved homeland of Uruguay, here are… LOS SHAKERS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwvDluFn5_w&feature=related
Hey, thanks! I’ve never watched any of these Dylan docs, having a limited tolerance for Clinton Heylin, but that’s beside the point. I don’t know if I buy the Motorcycle Crash story but that depends on what you mean. Based on what I’ve read and heard, I believe that he had a motorcycle wipe-out, which probably banged him up a bit, but that this was either deliberately inflated into something seemingly more serious, in order to escape from certain obligations and to piece himself back together more metaphorically, or else evolved into that. Since I suspect there are limits to how interested anyone is in my theories on this, I will stop there.
I will take this opportunity to send this clip, one of my absolute favorites, of Johnny Nash singing Hold Me Tight, to my soul brother saturnismine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYhRpbqe1Zg
The song, the dancers, the whole thing is fantastic, and I know saturnismine will agree.
Incidentally, the only photo of the crash I have seen shows Dylan surrounded by cattle and rattlesnakes, with vultures circling. I’ll try to find that.
STRONG contender for Post of the Month!
I would like to pass this clip on to Mr. Mod, who seems to at least chuckle at some of my Gary Wright references. It’s also for anyone who digs obscure Beatle trivia.
Here is a pre-Dreamweaver, but post Spooky Tooth (v.1) Gary Wright with his short-lived band Wonderwheel getting their country-rock vibe on with George Harrsion on The Dick Cavett show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINycgPWDas
Very cool, funoka! I had no idea George Harrison and Gary Wright ever worked together, that this band ever existed, etc. It’s always cool to learn new Beatles-related facts after all this time. The drummer’s Look was a treat, and the song was good, one of those not great songs that could easily be ripped off and made a lot better. I LOVE songs like that!
I’ll pass on a clip to another Townsperson later this evening.
Does nobody — in particular Velv — see the wonderfulness in this Los Shakers song? Look past the bizarro pidgin English for a moment — it’s awesome!
I only got to watch the first 30 seconds so far, but I was transfixed by the Peter Lorre character who introduced the band. Now that I’m out of a run of meetings I get to go home, have dinner, be human for an hour or two, and then get back to this craziness. More later – I promise!
My recollection is that Wright plays on most of George’s solo records. Don’t make me pull out liner notes to confirm, ok? But I had never seen this clip–pretty good! Perhaps someone can advise me: if I can get past the band’s name–and it’s a big ‘if’–would I like Spooky Tooth?
I always assumed Wright was British, but he’s American. So.
BigSteve, you’re good at making connections. I spotted the connection from this LCD Soundsystem song to Pete Shelley’s “Homosapien” the first time I heard it, but yesterday I walked in the door and my wife was playing “Something Goes Wrong Again,” by the Buzzcocks. I realized that’s tied into these two songs too. Is Pete Shelley the “inventor” of this particular song structure, or does it come from pre-existing mold that I cannot connect?
The Buzzcocks, “Something’s Gone Wrong Again”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu0CYQGO0O0
Pete Shelley, “Homosapien”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3KzwpihR_U
LCD Soundsystem, “North American Scum”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG5oyPLLkkM
He’s American?!?!?
Originally. Moved to UK in 1967, apparently.
He’s from New Jersey and lives in LA now. Played on many Harrison albums and now tours with Ringo’s All Stars. Spooky Tooth had a few good songs, but it’s a chore to go through much of their stuff. Spooky Tooth (2.0 — the last gasp) included Foreigner’s Mick Jones, pre-Foreigner.
Here’s Spooky’s most famous song, probably.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxRstWAZBc&feature=related
And this one goes out to chergeuvarra!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xggFzkyd288
Damn, remind me again how Wetton managed to edge out Carl Palmer in the “Sexiest Prog Rocker” contest…
This is one to Big Steve — after my earlier post with the surprise George Harrison appearance on an obscure Gary Wright song, I was thinking of big stars appearing on minor stars TV gigs. As a relative newcomer to the Hall, I did a quick Dwight Twilley search and saw that Big Steve had the only Dwight-related post — shortest guitar solos back in 08. So this goes to Big Steve — Dwight and special guest T.P. Everyone knows T.P. sang back up on the “hit” Girls in the early 80s, but this is a late 70s song “Looking for the Magic” — actually a better song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l24DFbedbJ0
I see where you’re coming from, though I had never noticed the similarity. Murphy is also singing with that kind of strangulated vocal style that is reminiscent of Shelley. There’s a vocalless remix of Scum — the Kris Menace remix (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK6zTNdiVLs) — that sort of meets the Homosapien dance mix (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE3ut79zlIs) halfway.
The original Scum is still rock&roll to me because the drums are rock, not four on the floor dance. Sort of the way Shelley uses an acoustic 12-string strum as a way of not going all the way electro on Homosapien. And Something’s Gone Wrong Again has that high-pitched piano pulse that reminds me of Terry Riley’s In C.
As far as the riff, whether is ascending (Scum/Homo) or descending (Something’s Gone Wrong) this strikes me as a possible template: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIkoSPqjaU4. In true psychedelic fashion the guitar patterns here seem to go both up and down simultaneously.
I’m still trying to get my head around the concept of being married to someone who plays the Buzzcocks even when you’re not around. You’re a lucky man.
This is a great find. Dig Petty androgynously rocking the black choker! The connection between the two is that they were both signed to Denny Cordell’s Shelter Records, the label that was built on Leon Russell’s success. Twilley was actually from Tulsa, where the Shelter studio was, but for Petty it was just a stop on the way to L.A. stardom, though his first album did come out on Shelter.
This song is from the second album Twilley Don’t Mind, which I love as much as the first one. And I’m almost sure that the guitar player in the clip is Bill Pitcock, the man behind the world’s shortest great guitar solo (on I’m On Fire).
Wow, I’m wondering if I’d ever heard Spooky Tooth until now. That song was pretty cool – and that bass: BOSS! What model bass is that guy playing? I think I’ve always held that Classics IV (?) song “Spooky” against these guys.
Brilliant analysis and description of a lot of what I’m hearing, BigSteve! The simultaneously going up and down part is spot on, plus “Somebody to Love” has a bit of the meter, or whatever you’d call the structure of these songs.
My wife was blasting Singles Going Steady when I got home tonight too. She’s awesome, even if she can’t stand the dB’s, Graham Parker, and Fairport Convention.
I’m going to pass this on to cdm, because he wants to call bullshit on Laura Nyro.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVYyKtWUgjA
Looking for a good version of Wedding Bell Blues, I found this weird clip of a very diffident Sandy Posey singing her big hit Born a Woman (produced by Chips Moman). Nick Lowe covered the song on his 1977 Bowi ep:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVkJ2992mRo
I’d forgotten how much he’d rewritten the song.
I hear Palmer digs that 10cc song too.
I’m pretty sure that’s a Burns Bisen bass:
http://www.guitararcheology.com/tag/burns-bisen-bass/
That’s pretty cool, and the echo on his voice confirms Billy Joel’s instincts regarding the “heart attack” line that Phil Ramone made him sing out instead!
Very cool – and what other music discussion blog contains participants who so easily use the word “diffident?”
I bet cdm is sorry for wanting to call bullshit on Laura Nyro now!
T.P. looks very beautiful in this video, no doubt!
OK, I’ve now had time to dig this: BRILLIANT! They’re like the Uruguayan Rutles. I love when, at the 1:40 mark or so, Juan Sebastian Lennon becomes overjoyed (or cracks himself up at some in-joke with Paolo McCartney). And boy did they win over an initially skeptical crowd!
Lawdy Miss Clawdy, I’ve got to save my money and buy one of those things!
Twilley is Mr. Echo on many of his vocals and still does it on his newer self-released albums, like 2010’s Green Blimp. I’ve seen him live and he has a good voice, but he loves to mess around with it in the studio. The drummer in the video is Phil Seymour — R.I.P. — who did two solo power pop records that no one bought.
Here’s an example of what those sounded like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kpyWzKkdDg
On the Emerson vid – it’s pretty amazing showmanship and while it pains me to see such a precious instrument being mangled, you have to hand it to the guy. I think the knives are silly, but when he’s getting some radical sound out of the thing. Of course, it would be easier just to kick around a spring reverb tank, but that wouldn’t look as cool, would it?
This one’s for Hank Fan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi4W3qH4xxs&feature=related
Yeah, I remember liking Phil Seymour’s songs when I’d see him on Rock World. I regret never buying that record. I always knew who Twilley was but figured I didn’t like him for some reason. When I hear him now he sounds worth checking out again and getting to know better. Is he “reclusive” in some way or just not popular? He gets a lot of love from certain music fans, but he never seems to surface in magazines like The Big Takeover. For some reason I thought he was one of those guys like the “Fresh as a Daisy” guy, from the Merry-Go-Round (blanking on his name, although I own 2 or 3 of his albums…).
Wow, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone holster a double-neck guitar before!
Twilley is sort of recluse in Tulsa, but now that he doesn’t have to deal with record companies he releases a lot of stuff. Two good albums he put out in the 90s are “The Luck” and “Tulsa.”
Very cool. I like those first two Twilley albums a lot, but never saw this clip.
Emmit Rhodes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUDi4wCzG0A
Yes, Rhodes is the guy who’s name I blanked on. I read an interview with him in TapeOp or The Big Takeover about 2 years ago that was kind of weird/sad. That’s a cool promo film I’d never seen before. I dig his proto-Colin Moulding hairdo.
I’m checking out this recent, uncomfortable interview with a recent-day Rhodes. I had no idea some kind of movie came out on him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj-5Co8dK1I&feature=related
Interesting! I knew there was a connection, but didn’t know it was that direct. I always thought there were a few moments on Petty’s debut that sounded like Twilley — the bg vocals on “Strangered in the Night” have that staccato slapback echo thing going on.
Twilley is pretty active on Facebook, in a self-promoting kind of way. I used to be in a band that got compared to Twilley but none of us had ever heard him and we had no idea what those people were talking about.
Thank you BigSteve. Inspired by the message of Born A Woman, the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I now realize that my dislike of Ms Nyro comes from deep-rooted male chauvinism and not, as I had always assumed, from my dislike of the pseudo-show tune rock genre of the late 60’s/early 70’s.
Chickenfrank, this one’s for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUlU105lkgs
Chickenfrank, here’s a bonus track: Gabrielle by Shane McGowen’s original band the Nipple Erectors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bDDAOJV1xU
If you liked Uruguay’s Los Shakers, you may also enjoy Uruguay’s Los Shakers rip-off band, Los Mockers! A rip-off of a rip-off… and they’re still great. Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4riJtKwRGY&feature=related
Actually, that’s not quite fair — Los Mockers were like Uruguay’s Stones, in the same way that Los Shakers were the nation’s Beatles. Gotta give rip-off credit where credit is due. No joke, though, both these bands are great.
Pince-nez: It’s a Burns “Bison” — which I’ve always thought was a super-cool name for a bass. Mind you, they also made Bison guitars, so so much for that enthusiasm.
Mod, the singer in my band plays a Burns Steer (largely because that’s what Billy Brag played during his first US tour apparently). It sounds great but it’s an eyesore.
Here it is in action: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=51858388165&aid=188691#!/photo.php?fbid=411169928165&set=a.411168608165.188691.51858388165&theater
I think you guys were on that gig too, by the way. Richard Lloyd?
Yep. I like that guitar; I think it looks good.