Mar 312009
Forget about chicks and cars, I suspect this is why we pick up an instrument and dream of making it big!
Feb 202007
All-Star Jam. Everything is fine.
2 Responses to “All-Star Jam”
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WTF?! That’s just about the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen round these parts. Are those muttonchop sideburns on that “girl”?
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If you’ve never seen Eraserhead I highly recommend it, although if this clip freaks you out, the entire movie is no less creepy.
Prince’s latest drops today (don’t think I’ve ever used that phrase before) in an exclusive at Target only. Three discs for $11.98. Caution though, one of those discs, is by his latest female protege with Prince doing, I guess, the writing, producing, and instruments.
Part of me thinks, “what the hell, three discs for twelve bucks, how bad could it be?” The other part thinks, “bad enough that it won’t be worth the time I’d have to invest in listening to it all”.
So I’m on the fence as to whether to buy it or not. What does RTH think?
Do you remember the commerical for Get Happy!!! by Elvis C back in the day?
WRT the latest Big Choice Poll: I knew somebody who toured with Little Village, and he said the guys in the band couldn’t stand each other. I always wondered who the assholes in that band were. I can’t imagine people not liking Nick Lowe. Keltner seems well-loved, as does Hiatt. Is Cooder the asshole?
Ry Cooder something of a control freak, right? It seems like he’d be the likely candidate. It can’t be Keltner; you can’t be that prolific and beloved of a session player if you’re an asshole, right?
I’m not sure if I remember a commercial for Get Happy!!, diskojoe. I’ll have to search YouTube for it now.
My guess is that sober Nick Lowe is a preening, self-absorbed drag on The Road. Hiatt sings and looks like he’s constipated, so he’s probably not much fun either. Cooder spends most of his time in Third World countries, where his likely poor social skills can be brushed off as typical “Damn Yankee!” behavior. Keltner was probably the lone Good Egg in that village.
As for the 3-CD Prince set, I think at least a few of you should buy it so we can hear how bad it is.
I wouldn’t buy that new Prince album with HVB’s money!
I’ve listened to the Prince CDs (I skipped the protege disc), it didn’t grab me too much. I liked “Chocolate Box”, which sounds like he dragged all his vintage equipment from the 80’s out of the closet, but I’m surprised how much of it sounds like smooth jazz. I was a major fan since hearing Lee PAris play DIRTY MIND but there isn’t an album I’d defend between 1991’s DIAMONDS AND PEARLS through 2006’s 3121 (which I thought was surprisingly strong).
These new discs sounds like pretty much everything he has done over the last twenty years, a few good songs mixed with dreck. Funny, because those early records really held together as “albums”, where so much of what he has done since seems formless to me.
I listened to one half of one song off of the protege disc and it sounded dreadful. The MPLSound disc got the same amount of ear time, but the jury’s still out. Sounds like one of his goofing-off-in-the-studio efforts to me.
The “main” album, however, has some extremely strong stuff on it — and some extremely weird stuff, too. Not necessarily weird-good, either. His cover of “Crimson & Clover” is pretty pointless, and the faux-mariachi-meets-smooth-jazz instrumental is downright bizarre. But, by golly, I quite liked the vast majority of what I heard, up to the Berlin Wall song, which is where I got out of the car.
One thing worth mentioning for the rockists on this list: it’s by far the most guitar-centric, rock explosion album he’s done since “The Gold Experience,” which is another patchily excellent wrecka. So far, I’m liking it, with the assistance of my “skip” button.
On the subject of Ben Vaughn, I’d just like to say that “She’s Your Problem Now” is one of my favorite break-up songs.
Despite his engaging stage manner, I’ve heard that Hiatt is a most unpleasant character.
Tales of Hiatt’s offstage character are no surprise considering what his dad did.
Hate to pull rank on you guys, but I’m very good friends with some of Hiatt’s closest friends in Nashville, and they have nothing but nice things to say about him. Though I’ve never met him, he sent me a nice thank you note when I gave his daughter some old family furniture for her dorm room at college!
Sure, HVB, in writing he’s a doll. Face to face would probably be another matter.
Seriously, I hope people know I’m having fun with this speculation as I’m sure you are too.
I think we all know people who are more unpleasant at work than we, I mean they, are at home.
I loaded up my iPod with a bunch of download purchases I’ve made over the last month. A busy day of work has been spent enjoying a couple of covers from a Chris Stamey Experience album (eg, a surprisingly rocking “Shapes of Things”), albums Kpdexter recommended by Gentleman Jesse (sounds like a New Wave band I would have dug on Rockworld in 1978) and Jay Reatard (sounds like GBV and/or The Replacements after digesting massive amounts of the Buzzcocks), a Terry Riley album based around Spanish guitar (The Book of Abbeyozz, or something like that), and – thanks to BigSteve – John Coltrane’s Sun Ship, one of those “dashiki/psych font” sessions that actually is as good as BigSteve advertised.
I picked up the mind-blowing double-disc PLANTATION GOLD: THE MAD GENIUS OF SHELBY S SINGLETON & PLANTATION RECORDS 1967-1976. It compiles some of the wildest records from the label, who would sign anybody with a decent song for a one-single contract. Fifty-eight tunes with lots of the crazy novelty storytelling stuff for which I have weakness.
I had at least one Plantation 45 as a kid, Rod Hart’s “C.B. Savage”, about a gay C.B. radio user. Imagine the comedic possibilities!
Hey hrrundivbakshi, I’d be curious what you think have been Prince’s career highlights since his ’96 EMANCIPATION…
Everyone knows there’s only ONE “Freedom Rock” song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taVW8Kv2HcQ
Seriously, I have a weird trainwreck fascination with this song and video. The Berlin Wall fell, communism was snuffed out by a mighty popular uprising, and *this* is the best we got out of the deal?
Buskirk: you mean individual tracksssss?
I don;t grade too hard, any way you want to cut it. I figured you would be more likely to mention some tracks I may have missed than to espouse the genius of N.E.W.S. or CHAOS & DISORDER…
This past weekend, I made my trip to Gloucester to dump some flotsam & jetsam from my collection & I got the following in trade:
1. The Move-BBC Sessions
2. Parachute-The Pretty Things
3. Blur-Best of
Also, I picked up 5 classical harpischord albums from the free classical music LP bin. A rather successful jaunt, if I say so myself. I think I could have made a great baseball GM.
Speaking of baseball, Mr. Mod, since baseball is about to begin w/the F***ING WORLD CHAMPS on Sunday, how about a little something comparing Townsmen to baseball players past & present like the thread you had comparing Townsmen to other Townsmen?
I’ve got that Parachute record in an import three-in-one deal. It reminds me of The Beach Boys. I really like it. The set included and early Stonesy P.T. record, Parachute, and an early 80s power-pop thing. It’s almost like three different bands! It’s all good stuff.
TB
I’ll answer any quiz as long as I get compared to Dan Quisenberry.
Nice haul, Diskojoe! Let me think about your Townsman-Baseball idea. I’m intrigued.
Hrrundi, I think you will be Juan Berenguer.
Due to lack of time and brain power, I haven’t put it together to start a thread on RTH. However, I have been developing ideas for threads down in the RTH Lab – possible avenues for future research and development. Who knows if these ideas will generate productive future threads, but I’m sure that we can all agree that pure RTH scientific rock research is a vital part of our mission. Consider these concepts “open source” and available for the taking and tweeking. As always, your hard work is the illumination that guides our way forward.
– The Free Pass. What do we really mean by the free pass? Discuss the history and usage of the free pass. Is there even such a thing?
– The fine (and moving) line between tribute (quoting) and plagiarism in rock.
– A dispassionate critique of the Not Lame year-end top 75 (and/or Audities top 20 poll). Show your work.
– A lot of songs by the Jam have not aged well. Explain how we know this.
Thank you for your time. Future topics in topics are currently in development.
Sincerely,
RTH Labs
The below blog post brings together a few recent topics, mainly the new Prince album and Tvox’s proposition regarding Free Passes.
http://www.moistworks.com/2009/03/come-rain-or-come-shine-sarah-vaughan.html
I would be remiss not to tell you that the latest issue of MOJO has a great interview w/Nick Lowe, as well as a rather gincy front cover story about The Who Sell Out, which came out as a 2-disc deluxe set in the UK.
I know that this site has rightly heaped praise on Basher’s music, but I also enjoy reading his interviews, which can be quite witty at the very least.