Just read that David Greenfield, keyboardist from The Stranglers, is the latest rock casualty of COVID-19. My introduction to that band came on a particularly strange night in the fall of 1982, when an older friend and “tour guide” played me and two other friends The Gospel According to the Men in Black. I didn’t understand The Stranglers then, nor can I fully get my head around their core to this day, but that night they were just like nothing on earth, in large part to Greenfield’s keyboard playing.
That is sad news about the Stranglers – I remember wanting to see them at Revival, but I was too young to get in. Some clubs were more stringent about carding (I snuck into Dobbs on multiple occasions, starting when I was 17). Was anyone at that show?
If anyone’s on Twitter, have you been following these: https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com
Some of them have been quite fun – I see the first Specials album coming up on the schedule, looking forward to that.
Just discovered that Sonic Youth has switched to uploading live archival material to Bandcamp. (Previously they uploaded to Nugs.) I’ve listened to nearly all of this show–I’m 20 minutes into the final 26-minute track and still digging it mightily:
I just came over to say how not only sorry but just stunned I feel about losing Dave Greenfield to this bloody disease. Jet Black stopped touring with them some years ago and they were about to do their farewell tour when everything closed. I guess that’s the end.
I’d practically given up on Top of the Pops by the start of the summer holidays in 77, but got in after playing out with my mates down the park and switched it on more from habit than the expectation of anything other than the Nolan Sisters and KC and the Sunshine Band. Peaches was in the charts, which I hadn’t followed for a while, and they announced the Stranglers, who played Go Buddy Go, the b side. Not only that, but when everybody had always mimed, they played live.
I’d never seen anything like it. Only seeing Roxy Music doing Virginia Plain, which got me into glam had a similar effect. I decided to become a punk there and then and bought the record the next day.
I spent my paper round money over the summer on their back catalogue to date, and carried on buying their records up to about Gospel According to Meninblack, which was further than most got. I even wrote to Hugh Cornwell when he was in jail, and he replied, although I can’t find the letter now. I’m not sure that a lot of their records have aged well, some were pretty questionable at the time, but the best of their stuff is stellar, and there’s a lot of best to go around.
They were the first band I saw of my own volition, on the No More Heroes tour in 77 just after my sixteenth birthday, and what a great night that was. The Dictators were the support band, I don’t remember much about them other than sticking my head in the bass bin to see how loud it was and wishing I hadn’t. The Stranglers really couldn’t give a crap about anything and it showed. They were dark and intense and everything the music they played on the radio wasn’t.
I saw them loads of times after that. Hugh and JJ always looked angry and dangerous in the beginning, Jet Black didn’t need to, nobody was going to mess with him. Dave always looked like he was having a fine old time with his mates. Post Hugh they all looked mellower, including Hugh solo.
Dave’s keyboards were as much the key to the band’s sound as JJ’s bass, just as Floyd needed Richard Wright to sound like Floyd, Dave was indispensable, and now he’s gone.
Bugger. I never met him but I feel like I’ve lost an old friend.
I have been enjoying Robert Fripp’s diary entries.
He is a very interesting and thoughtful guy. As unusual as his strict anti-photography/autograph policy is, his explanations of it are simple, direct, honest, and respectful.
I don’t remember the Stranglers playing at Revival. I saw them twice, once at Filly’s, which was on the Northeast corner of 3rd and Chestnut. It was probably in 1978. I liked the records but they were excruciatingly loud, especially as they were playing on the longs side of a rectangular room and only about 30′ from the wall opposite.
Saw them again on the Black and White Tour at Emerald City in Cherry Hill. Much bigger room and they sounded great. I also like that album best of all and think it has held up better because of its slightly reduced butthead quotient as compared to the first two records.
As I mentioned, I’m working my way through some of the interviews on that Soda Jerker podcast that you guys turned me on to. I’m really enjoying them, but man that Elvis Costello episode was a disappointment.
I’ve read some interviews with him over the years and he usually appears to be a genuinely interested in an eclectic mix of musical styles and history. But in the podcast interview, he really seems to be worried about not getting enough credit for his songwriting accomplishments. It’s weird. He’s Elvis Frigging Costello and his interview persona was one of arrogance masking insecurity.
I’ve never really dug deep so I don’t have a frame of reference, but was this an off day or is he really kind of a jag-off? Is he insecure because he developed enough as an artist to play with the likes of Burt Bacharach and that classical quartet but lunkheads like me just want to hear This Years Girl? What gives?
Even David Crosby, who always comes across as an arrogant asshole, sounded more gracious about his collaborations.
I used to consider Elvis Costello one of my favorite artists. I couldn’t wait to get his latest albums & I was very happy that Rykodisc, which was based in the Witch City, reissued his early stuff. But for some reason, as the years went by, I started caring less about him. The last new album of his that I got was North back in 2004. I got rid of the post 1986 albums that I had. I did get his autobiography to see if I could get back any interest, but I got turned off when he called Wreckless Eric “a horrible little git”. So although I still sometimes listen to his early stuff, Elvis Costello is now “meh” to me. Perhaps the late Billy Miller of Norton Records fame got it right when he called him “a smug version of James Taylor”.
“Costello wants it both ways. He wants to be Elvis and Declan; wants to have pop success, but then reserves the right to be snooty about it. As if the real business of pop was having private dinners with great mates such as McCartney and Bacharach, swooning together over diminished chords, and not some vulgar affair of hit singles by bonkers kids with their egos on fire.”
I’ve tried to mellow my opinion of EC since my brief meeting with him in 1978, when he came over completely in line with the opinions expressed above. I’ve told myself many times he might have been having a bad day, but if so he certainly seems to have a lot of them. It’s a shame, cos he’s written some great tunes, he just seems like such an obnoxious twat.
I’m also loving the soda jerker podcast, the Ian Brodie one is probably my favourite I’ve heard so far out of not very many, the Mike Nesmith and Robyn Hitchcock episodes giving it a good run for its money.
Thanks for the tips, Stan. I’m not familiar with Ian Brodie but that won ‘t deter me. And I was on a Nesmith kick not too long ago so I’d love to hear that one.
One last thing about the King and I: I’ve only ever heard the first four albums and Blood and Chocolate in their entirety. And I like some songs on B&C, but I never really find myself reaching for it. Those first four albums are essential and I love them, and they’re enough for me. I just wish I had known he was kind of an a-hole sooner so I could have made my peace with it already.
“But in the podcast interview, he really seems to be worried about not getting enough credit for his songwriting accomplishments. It’s weird. He’s Elvis Frigging Costello and his interview persona was one of arrogance masking insecurity.”
Something which I never don’t find fascinating is the deep-seated insecurity of so many of our greatest artists. Roger Waters, Paul McCartney, Quincy Jones, John Fogerty, Paul Simon, Paul Westerberg (sniff), Robbie Robertson and a few more really obvious ones I’m currently blanking on, have all made semi-prats out of themselves at various times by not being comfortable with the massive amounts of acclaim they’ve gotten over the years, but sorta “well, actually”ing their credits in an attempt to get even more. Which, even if true, is just petty when you get to a certain level.
(Mike Love has also done this, but no one expects him to be anything but a douche, so it’s not exactly a shock.)
“I wish Elvis Costello could get a late-night talk show already.”
I wish we’d gotten more seasons of Spectacle, although what we did get is more than we possibly can have hoped for.
Scott (the other one), I love your list of insecure whiners. I couldn’t have come up with each of those, but reading them, I nodded my head at each one. (except maybe Paul Simon, I can’t think of an example of him thinking he’s undervalued, but I’ll take your word for it)
This is an interesting subject. I’ve felt that Joe Jackson struggles with this – the first hint I noticed was his appending the title Kinda Kute with “a pop song.” Does he look down on the kind of music that he clearly enjoys? Does he perhaps feels guilty that he isn’t doing more heady music? Which leads to a phrase I really dislike: “classically trained.” I’ve heard it applied to Jackson, Alicia Keys, Gaga, several musicians. What does this really mean? To me, it implies either that somehow this musician is superior to others, because they took classical music lessons, or perhaps it means they have an inferiority complex because they feel they could be making classical music, but instead have opted to step down the ladder of musical snobbery to grace us with this lesser form of music. There may be a lot of projection and possible grist for my therapist in this post if nobody else sees it this way.
I do think Paul Simon is one of the most underrated of the great songwriters, American Tune is as good a song as anyone could ever aspire to write. IMHO. He’s obviously complicated. I won’t expand on this now, though.
Joe Jackson is probably the winner of “Biggest gap between an album I love and the rest of his catalog”. Or maybe he’s the gold standard for the New Wave Bait and Switch. His first album is outstanding, my interest falls sharply halfway through the second album, and shortly thereafter we’re listening to the Show Tune Pop of “Into the Night”. I don’t begrudge New Wave carpetbaggers like Sting or Elvis Costello or Joe Jackson. They are great musicians who saw an opportunity to capitalize on a trend in order to establish themselves. I do begrudge them when they act like the only interesting part of their career is somehow beneath them. Joe Jackson has a lot of things he could legitimately be embarrassed by (pretentiousness, an album of jazz standards, the aforementioned Into the Night, etc), but aside from the cloying title, he shouldn’t be embarrassed by Kinda Kute.
As an off-shoot of the insecurity of certain stars, I’m always amazed at the discomfort Dylan displays in almost anything seen in the last 30 years. He’s been performing for 60 years, he’s got every accolade ever, why does he seem so uncomfortable in every public situation? Especially since he wasn’t that way early on.
I’ve heard at least some of it attributed to the fact that he has poor vision but doesn’t wear glass/contacts on stage but it seems to go far beyond that.
Kraftwerk were a great, great band, and the German language versions of the albums are even better, probably because I don’t speak German.
Saw the classic lineup on the Computer World tour, the first time they’d toured in years, they essentially packed up Kling Klang and took it around Europe, if not the world.
They started at eight sharp and finished at ten on the dot. The encore, precisely timed, obviously, was Pocket Calculator, everybody got out of their seats and danced, I went to the front. During the instrumental bit at the end, Florian reached out with his hand held device, grinning like mad and pointing at the buttons with his other hand. I pressed one of the buttons and it went beep, so possibly that counts as having jammed with Kraftwerk, however briefly. Whatever, I’ll never forget it.
The Robbie Robertson schtick has really worn me out. I do empathize with his feelings that the guys were living a little too close to the edge to go on, but his constant portrayal as himself as the intellectual architect of the Band is really off-putting. It’s almost as if he doesn’t understand that the social musical roots of the other guys, who all seemed to grow up with music making as a part of everyday life was what gave his “vision” depth.
I want to see that recent documentary, even though I’ve resisted reading Robertson’s book. It was great seeing those early days, and some of the stories reinforced how out of control they got when the money hit. But Manuel was the sole composer of “We Can Talk,” “Lonesome Suzie” and “In a Station.” Those three ain’t filler, and “In a Station” is really something special, as was further demonstrated by Karen Dalton’s version.
Macca has seemed to get quite a bit more comfortable and less needy in the past decade—probably not coincidentally as his critical reputation has recovered from its nadir in the 70s.
Waters has issues and always has. But my god what a writer.
Simon seems to have always chafed at being considered lesser than Dylan. And there’s the Los Lobos issue.
But Robbie Robertson absolutely towers under them all. A pal and I used to talk about how Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was both genuinely great and the most overrated album ever—because back in the 80s, it seemed to top every greatest albums ever list, when in reality it wasn’t even close to being the best album the Beatles ever put out. That’s Robbie Robertson: he’s both genuinely great and nowhere near as great as he and Scorsese think he is.
I mean, yeah, those first two Band albums are unimpeachable. And over the next several years, he and the Band created a bunch more great stuff. He wrote some of the greatest songs ever and he’s an engaging speaker and oh what a guitarist! And, sure, I liked his first solo album a lot at the time, although I don’t think it’s held up, and the next few were fine, but since 1975 he hasn’t produced a single song that’s as good as the stuff on the first two Band albums. Because it turns out those freeloaders grifting on him were in reality responsible for much (most?) of his greatness. (see also: John Fogerty)
Cool open letter to Mark Zuckerberg from Steve Nieve. If you, like me, took high school (or beyond) French, take your time scrolling down to the English translation and see if you can get the gist in French.
I’m sure I must have propounded my Band theory before on RTH but here goes again.
The Band weren’t nearly what they were cracked up to be; it was mostly Dylan.
Before Dylan, they were a bar band, backing up…someone (yeah, I know it was Ronnie Hawkins but nobody would know him were it not for the Hawks). Dylan takes them on and they become instantly part of rock & roll history in arguably the most famous rock tour ever. And they do it bringing Dylan’s vision, that thin wild mercury sound, to life.
Comes a motorcycle accident (maybe) and they retreat to Big Pink and again are part of a mythologized part of rock & roll history with, uh, Bob Dylan. They put out an initial two albums, fantastic albums by any reckoning, but heavily influenced by that stay in the basement. Highlights of the first album were written/co-written by Bob Dylan.
Post second album comes diminishing returns. What’s their post 1970 highlight? Another historic tour in 1974 again backing up Bob Dylan.
And then more mythology with the Last Waltz and then nothing.
It’s really a mighty thin resume and most of it is cribbed from Dylan’s resume.
If Bob Dylan didn’t exist we would have never heard of the Band.
I get your point on The Band, Al, but I stand behind that thin resume. An even thinner resume, but no less valid IMO, is that of Television, who put out ONE fantastic album side – a half of an album – that is nearly worthy of Hall of Fame status. It’s like if Koufax’s arm fell apart only 2 years into his brief, late-bloomer career or Clemente died in that plane crash with only 1500 career hits.
Counterpoint, Al: George Harrison took an advance copy of the first album back to England and shortly thereafter, the Beatles knocked off the psychedelic nonsense in favor of more roots based approach, the Stones begin a new era with Beggar’s Banquet, and Clapton quits with Cream and begins his still ongoing Phase 2 of his obsession with American music after a quick detour into Blind Faith. I think the Band (and Sweethearts of the Rodeo) had a profound impact that is still resonating today.
Mod, I totally agree about Television I don’t even like 2 of the 8 songs on that album but I think that the other 6 alone should be enough to get them into the Hall of Fame.
The interesting thing about Marquee Moon is that you could probably plat See No Evil or Venus for people that never heard it and they probably couldn’t reliably guess the recording year within a decade. I think it might be the most effective recording of all times in terms of the techniques used and how well they’ve avoided sounding dated.
My introduction to Television, and The Jam, was walking into a second hand record shop the day after I’d seen the Stranglers on Top of the Pops with a quid in my pocket and found Marquee Moon and In The City for 49p each. They looked punk so I bought them.
I loved Marquee Moon on first hearing and still do today, I’ll accept the lyrics go a bit astray in a couple of places, but I’ve always focused on music rather than the words so can either ignore or forgive those. It’s a record I return to over and over. I’ve fallen in and out of love with Adventure at various times, for me there’s a lot to enjoy on it. I certainly return to both more often than I listen to Weller or the Jam, I can’t remember the last time I played In the City.
So which tracks would you sacrifice? I’d grant it’s not quite perfect, but I’d give it a solid 9 out of ten.
I think the tracks virtually everybody would ditch are “Guiding Light” and “Torn Curtain.” Over time, I’ve come to terms with “Guiding Light,” but “Torn Curtain” still strikes me as overwrought and misshapen. That said, I still let it play to hear the first phrase in the guitar solo.
Great point, geo, re: the timelessness of Marquee Moon’s production. Man, that album is so great, despite how boring much of side 2 gets. I wish I could remove “Torn Curtain” and burn the master. The other songs just don’t go anywhere particularly interesting.
Geo and I are on the same page. The production is timeless and the Torn Curtain and Guiding Light both blow. The rest of it is strong enough to make it a top 5 album for me.
“The interesting thing about Marquee Moon is that you could probably plat See No Evil or Venus for people that never heard it and they probably couldn’t reliably guess the recording year within a decade. I think it might be the most effective recording of all times in terms of the techniques used and how well they’ve avoided sounding dated.”
I agree wholeheartedly, but think the best of CCR is up there, in terms of timelessness of sound.
Hey Geo and CDM, of the two I think I’d miss Guiding Light the least, Torn Curtain is guilty of mannered and arch lyrics, I guess, but I wouldn’t harm a hair on its admittedly lengthy head. Neither prevent me navigating there on my MP3 player in the car when I’m not sure what I’m in the mood to hear, certainly not in the way Mind Gardens gives me pause when considering Younger Than Yesterday, an otherwise equally flawless album.
I was talking about high school reunions w/someone the other day & I was saying that one of my fellow co-workers graduated in 1964 & her reunions were well attended while they combined my graduate yr. w/the next one (1980-81) & not too many people attend (including myself even though the last one was literally down the street from me). I think one of the reasons among many is how the perception on going to high school has changed. Back in 1964 the big song about school was the Beach Boys’ “Be True to Your School”, but by 1980 the song about school was “Another Brick in the Wall” , by Pink Floyd, which made #1 in the single charts which was pretty amazing considering what else made the chart then.
That’s a surprise. “Friction” is the hardest hitting track and has some rally hard hitting dissonant chords and great guitar work throughout. It’s hard to cut off the extreme, unless it’s extremely bad, which “Friction” is decidedly not.
I can understand the Oats stance a little better. “Elevation” could be seen as some kind slowed down cross between “See No Evil” and “Marquee Moon”, and possibly not as good as either of those. I prefer to think of it as a compact distillation of those, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as anything on the A-side.
“Guiding Light” seems like a let down because it’s just too far from the main strengths of the band. I don’t generally listen to Television for tinkling piano figures. That said, if I leave my expectations aside, it brings a sound to the album that opens it up and I’ve learned to appreciate it particularly on hearing it through other versions on Television tribute albums. It should be noted that to my knowledge, they never performed the thing live. That says something.
This discussion has made me realize something that I think might be the reason that side 2 seems like such a letdown: putting aside HS opinion of “Friction”, it’s possible that a majority of fans might agree that side 1 has the best four songs on the album, straight up.
I think the only Television fan who loves “Guiding Light,” which I think is one of the stronger songs on side 2, is our old friend Richard Lloyd, because he gets to pull off a heroic, melodic solo.
Possibilities for RTH Movie night. I think the scree share works for Zoom but we should confirm.
Documentaries on Netflix:
– Quincy
– Clive Davis (I never realized how much crap music he was responsible for)
– The Black Godfather (about Clarence Avant, who I had never heard of before but this was pretty good. Basically he’s enormously well connected in the African American community and has be very instrumental in seeking economic equality in the music biz)
– Rush
– ZZ Top (although it sounds like most if us have seen it already)
– Oasis
– Who the Fuck Is That Guy (the story of Michael Alago, a gay Puerto Rican New Yorker who signed a bunch of metal bands including Metalica).
– Echos in the Canyon (Laurel Canyon originals reminisce while Jacob Dylan and Beck play covers)
Documentaries on Hulu:
– The Wrecking Crew
– Standing in the Shadows of Motown
– The Quiet One (Bill Wyman)
– Nico 1988
– Joe Strummer the Future is Now
– Bad Reputation – Joan Jett
– Amazing Grace (Aretha Franklin)
– The Other F Word (middle age punks balance domestic life with rock)
– Jerry Lewis: the Man Behind the Clown (America says he’s a clown, France says he’s a genius. Admittedly this has nothing to do with music but it would probably be pretty funny.)
I don’t have Prime anymore but they had a bunch of good ones as well.
This is such a strange conversation, it feels like being asked which of my limbs or senses I’d be most accepting of having taken away.
If the house was on fire and one track had to be sacrificed to save the rest, I’d very reluctantly part with Friction, but I’d prefer to get them all out if I could.
I had no idea people hated Torn Curtain so much until this thread. It doesn’t strike me as any more ‘overwrought’ than the title song. I like the outro guitar solo as well as the one in the middle, and I like Billy Ficca proving that he can do his stuff on a slow song.
And people really don’t like side 2 in general? You know, you can’t have an album of ten songs that all burn like See No Evil. I guess maybe you could, but that’s not this album. I think this goes back to Verlaine’s view that Marquee Moon gave an inaccurate picture of what the band was really like, or at least what he wanted it to be like. He think Adventure sounds more like his vision. I respect that, and I like Adventure (and the later self-titled album), as well as Verlaine’s solo work. But I definitely am glad that they made Marquee Moon before they reverted to type.
When I see this clip, I wish Television had remained this band, and just gotten a lot better than this. Marquee Moon, especially the first side feels like that.
It’s a mess, but well worth at least flipping through and sampling:
And as far as Marquee Moon not sounding like Verlaine’s vision for the band, hell, that’s true but that’s the problem. Verlaine had a genuine misconception bout elements of the band that really made them special. The prime example was his feeling that Ficca’s drumming was too busy to be commercially viable. Billy Ficca was far and away the element that made “Little Johnny Jewel” so great. He is consistently creative and outstanding on Marquee Moon. If Adventure was more on line with Verlaine’s vision, his vision apparently included making the drumming competent and faceless, maybe roughly, or exactly, like Jay Dee Dougherty.
I’ve read the RTH Lloyd interview, read his book and seen him enough to know what a nutcase he is, but I actually might believe his claim that he quit Television because they could only contractually use the name if the line up had three of the four original members, and he felt like Verlaine was pushing to get rid of Ficca.
I wouldn’t call it a misconception. All bands are shifting sets of balances and tensions. Often a temporary balance that is most satisfactory for listeners is not sustainable for the band. Look at Marquee Moon — they couldn’t even sustain it for a whole album, according to people in this group.
Btw I was reading the Marquee Moon Wikipedia page to check who was playing which solo, and I read that Torn Curtain and Guiding Light were the last songs written:
“During preparations, the band rejected most of the material they had written over the course of three years. Once they were in the studio, they recorded two new songs for the album—”Guiding Light” and “Torn Curtain”—and older songs such as “Friction”, “Venus”, and the title track, which had become a standard at their live shows.”
I think the author of that one anticipated Al’s observation and pulled out his thesaurus to use “exhibitionist” instead of flamboyant. Truthfully, the sentence would have sounded better with “flamboyant.”
Just read that David Greenfield, keyboardist from The Stranglers, is the latest rock casualty of COVID-19. My introduction to that band came on a particularly strange night in the fall of 1982, when an older friend and “tour guide” played me and two other friends The Gospel According to the Men in Black. I didn’t understand The Stranglers then, nor can I fully get my head around their core to this day, but that night they were just like nothing on earth, in large part to Greenfield’s keyboard playing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y70gRIgmA0
That is sad news about the Stranglers – I remember wanting to see them at Revival, but I was too young to get in. Some clubs were more stringent about carding (I snuck into Dobbs on multiple occasions, starting when I was 17). Was anyone at that show?
If anyone’s on Twitter, have you been following these:
https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com
Some of them have been quite fun – I see the first Specials album coming up on the schedule, looking forward to that.
Just discovered that Sonic Youth has switched to uploading live archival material to Bandcamp. (Previously they uploaded to Nugs.) I’ve listened to nearly all of this show–I’m 20 minutes into the final 26-minute track and still digging it mightily:
https://sonicyouth.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-the-orange-peel-2004
Oddly disappointing sonic quality on the 1993 archive.
I just came over to say how not only sorry but just stunned I feel about losing Dave Greenfield to this bloody disease. Jet Black stopped touring with them some years ago and they were about to do their farewell tour when everything closed. I guess that’s the end.
I’d practically given up on Top of the Pops by the start of the summer holidays in 77, but got in after playing out with my mates down the park and switched it on more from habit than the expectation of anything other than the Nolan Sisters and KC and the Sunshine Band. Peaches was in the charts, which I hadn’t followed for a while, and they announced the Stranglers, who played Go Buddy Go, the b side. Not only that, but when everybody had always mimed, they played live.
I’d never seen anything like it. Only seeing Roxy Music doing Virginia Plain, which got me into glam had a similar effect. I decided to become a punk there and then and bought the record the next day.
I spent my paper round money over the summer on their back catalogue to date, and carried on buying their records up to about Gospel According to Meninblack, which was further than most got. I even wrote to Hugh Cornwell when he was in jail, and he replied, although I can’t find the letter now. I’m not sure that a lot of their records have aged well, some were pretty questionable at the time, but the best of their stuff is stellar, and there’s a lot of best to go around.
They were the first band I saw of my own volition, on the No More Heroes tour in 77 just after my sixteenth birthday, and what a great night that was. The Dictators were the support band, I don’t remember much about them other than sticking my head in the bass bin to see how loud it was and wishing I hadn’t. The Stranglers really couldn’t give a crap about anything and it showed. They were dark and intense and everything the music they played on the radio wasn’t.
I saw them loads of times after that. Hugh and JJ always looked angry and dangerous in the beginning, Jet Black didn’t need to, nobody was going to mess with him. Dave always looked like he was having a fine old time with his mates. Post Hugh they all looked mellower, including Hugh solo.
Dave’s keyboards were as much the key to the band’s sound as JJ’s bass, just as Floyd needed Richard Wright to sound like Floyd, Dave was indispensable, and now he’s gone.
Bugger. I never met him but I feel like I’ve lost an old friend.
I have been enjoying Robert Fripp’s diary entries.
He is a very interesting and thoughtful guy. As unusual as his strict anti-photography/autograph policy is, his explanations of it are simple, direct, honest, and respectful.
https://www.dgmlive.com/diaries/Robert%20Fripp/rf-diary-april17-2020
https://www.dgmlive.com/diaries/Robert%20Fripp/rf-diary-april24-2020
https://www.dgmlive.com/diaries/Robert%20Fripp/rf-diary-april29-2020
I don’t remember the Stranglers playing at Revival. I saw them twice, once at Filly’s, which was on the Northeast corner of 3rd and Chestnut. It was probably in 1978. I liked the records but they were excruciatingly loud, especially as they were playing on the longs side of a rectangular room and only about 30′ from the wall opposite.
Saw them again on the Black and White Tour at Emerald City in Cherry Hill. Much bigger room and they sounded great. I also like that album best of all and think it has held up better because of its slightly reduced butthead quotient as compared to the first two records.
I have to admit, I did not anticipate Fripp to have a goofy side, much less put it on display the way he’s been:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BofafRB7pmc
Also my goodness but Toyah is perhaps even more attractive than she was 30 years ago.
I wish Elvis Costello could get a late-night talk show already.
https://youtu.be/nfXyl0fBcTY
As I mentioned, I’m working my way through some of the interviews on that Soda Jerker podcast that you guys turned me on to. I’m really enjoying them, but man that Elvis Costello episode was a disappointment.
I’ve read some interviews with him over the years and he usually appears to be a genuinely interested in an eclectic mix of musical styles and history. But in the podcast interview, he really seems to be worried about not getting enough credit for his songwriting accomplishments. It’s weird. He’s Elvis Frigging Costello and his interview persona was one of arrogance masking insecurity.
I’ve never really dug deep so I don’t have a frame of reference, but was this an off day or is he really kind of a jag-off? Is he insecure because he developed enough as an artist to play with the likes of Burt Bacharach and that classical quartet but lunkheads like me just want to hear This Years Girl? What gives?
Even David Crosby, who always comes across as an arrogant asshole, sounded more gracious about his collaborations.
I used to consider Elvis Costello one of my favorite artists. I couldn’t wait to get his latest albums & I was very happy that Rykodisc, which was based in the Witch City, reissued his early stuff. But for some reason, as the years went by, I started caring less about him. The last new album of his that I got was North back in 2004. I got rid of the post 1986 albums that I had. I did get his autobiography to see if I could get back any interest, but I got turned off when he called Wreckless Eric “a horrible little git”. So although I still sometimes listen to his early stuff, Elvis Costello is now “meh” to me. Perhaps the late Billy Miller of Norton Records fame got it right when he called him “a smug version of James Taylor”.
cdm’s comment reminds me of this review of Costello’s autobiography: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/22/unfaithful-music-and-disappearing-ink-by-elvis-costello-review.
This reviewer kinda has Costello’s number here”
“Costello wants it both ways. He wants to be Elvis and Declan; wants to have pop success, but then reserves the right to be snooty about it. As if the real business of pop was having private dinners with great mates such as McCartney and Bacharach, swooning together over diminished chords, and not some vulgar affair of hit singles by bonkers kids with their egos on fire.”
I’ve tried to mellow my opinion of EC since my brief meeting with him in 1978, when he came over completely in line with the opinions expressed above. I’ve told myself many times he might have been having a bad day, but if so he certainly seems to have a lot of them. It’s a shame, cos he’s written some great tunes, he just seems like such an obnoxious twat.
I’m also loving the soda jerker podcast, the Ian Brodie one is probably my favourite I’ve heard so far out of not very many, the Mike Nesmith and Robyn Hitchcock episodes giving it a good run for its money.
Thanks for the tips, Stan. I’m not familiar with Ian Brodie but that won ‘t deter me. And I was on a Nesmith kick not too long ago so I’d love to hear that one.
One last thing about the King and I: I’ve only ever heard the first four albums and Blood and Chocolate in their entirety. And I like some songs on B&C, but I never really find myself reaching for it. Those first four albums are essential and I love them, and they’re enough for me. I just wish I had known he was kind of an a-hole sooner so I could have made my peace with it already.
“But in the podcast interview, he really seems to be worried about not getting enough credit for his songwriting accomplishments. It’s weird. He’s Elvis Frigging Costello and his interview persona was one of arrogance masking insecurity.”
Something which I never don’t find fascinating is the deep-seated insecurity of so many of our greatest artists. Roger Waters, Paul McCartney, Quincy Jones, John Fogerty, Paul Simon, Paul Westerberg (sniff), Robbie Robertson and a few more really obvious ones I’m currently blanking on, have all made semi-prats out of themselves at various times by not being comfortable with the massive amounts of acclaim they’ve gotten over the years, but sorta “well, actually”ing their credits in an attempt to get even more. Which, even if true, is just petty when you get to a certain level.
(Mike Love has also done this, but no one expects him to be anything but a douche, so it’s not exactly a shock.)
“I wish Elvis Costello could get a late-night talk show already.”
I wish we’d gotten more seasons of Spectacle, although what we did get is more than we possibly can have hoped for.
Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but for all his excesses, I think I’d get along with Costello.
Good point about appreciating what we did get out of Spectacle.
Scott (the other one), I love your list of insecure whiners. I couldn’t have come up with each of those, but reading them, I nodded my head at each one. (except maybe Paul Simon, I can’t think of an example of him thinking he’s undervalued, but I’ll take your word for it)
I loved Scott’s list too. IMO Waters, McCartney and Robertson are the worst offenders, easily.
This is an interesting subject. I’ve felt that Joe Jackson struggles with this – the first hint I noticed was his appending the title Kinda Kute with “a pop song.” Does he look down on the kind of music that he clearly enjoys? Does he perhaps feels guilty that he isn’t doing more heady music? Which leads to a phrase I really dislike: “classically trained.” I’ve heard it applied to Jackson, Alicia Keys, Gaga, several musicians. What does this really mean? To me, it implies either that somehow this musician is superior to others, because they took classical music lessons, or perhaps it means they have an inferiority complex because they feel they could be making classical music, but instead have opted to step down the ladder of musical snobbery to grace us with this lesser form of music. There may be a lot of projection and possible grist for my therapist in this post if nobody else sees it this way.
I do think Paul Simon is one of the most underrated of the great songwriters, American Tune is as good a song as anyone could ever aspire to write. IMHO. He’s obviously complicated. I won’t expand on this now, though.
Joe Jackson is probably the winner of “Biggest gap between an album I love and the rest of his catalog”. Or maybe he’s the gold standard for the New Wave Bait and Switch. His first album is outstanding, my interest falls sharply halfway through the second album, and shortly thereafter we’re listening to the Show Tune Pop of “Into the Night”. I don’t begrudge New Wave carpetbaggers like Sting or Elvis Costello or Joe Jackson. They are great musicians who saw an opportunity to capitalize on a trend in order to establish themselves. I do begrudge them when they act like the only interesting part of their career is somehow beneath them. Joe Jackson has a lot of things he could legitimately be embarrassed by (pretentiousness, an album of jazz standards, the aforementioned Into the Night, etc), but aside from the cloying title, he shouldn’t be embarrassed by Kinda Kute.
As an off-shoot of the insecurity of certain stars, I’m always amazed at the discomfort Dylan displays in almost anything seen in the last 30 years. He’s been performing for 60 years, he’s got every accolade ever, why does he seem so uncomfortable in every public situation? Especially since he wasn’t that way early on.
I’ve heard at least some of it attributed to the fact that he has poor vision but doesn’t wear glass/contacts on stage but it seems to go far beyond that.
Florian Schneider’s died, crap.
Cancer, not covid, but same result.
Kraftwerk were a great, great band, and the German language versions of the albums are even better, probably because I don’t speak German.
Saw the classic lineup on the Computer World tour, the first time they’d toured in years, they essentially packed up Kling Klang and took it around Europe, if not the world.
They started at eight sharp and finished at ten on the dot. The encore, precisely timed, obviously, was Pocket Calculator, everybody got out of their seats and danced, I went to the front. During the instrumental bit at the end, Florian reached out with his hand held device, grinning like mad and pointing at the buttons with his other hand. I pressed one of the buttons and it went beep, so possibly that counts as having jammed with Kraftwerk, however briefly. Whatever, I’ll never forget it.
The Robbie Robertson schtick has really worn me out. I do empathize with his feelings that the guys were living a little too close to the edge to go on, but his constant portrayal as himself as the intellectual architect of the Band is really off-putting. It’s almost as if he doesn’t understand that the social musical roots of the other guys, who all seemed to grow up with music making as a part of everyday life was what gave his “vision” depth.
I want to see that recent documentary, even though I’ve resisted reading Robertson’s book. It was great seeing those early days, and some of the stories reinforced how out of control they got when the money hit. But Manuel was the sole composer of “We Can Talk,” “Lonesome Suzie” and “In a Station.” Those three ain’t filler, and “In a Station” is really something special, as was further demonstrated by Karen Dalton’s version.
Macca has seemed to get quite a bit more comfortable and less needy in the past decade—probably not coincidentally as his critical reputation has recovered from its nadir in the 70s.
Waters has issues and always has. But my god what a writer.
Simon seems to have always chafed at being considered lesser than Dylan. And there’s the Los Lobos issue.
But Robbie Robertson absolutely towers under them all. A pal and I used to talk about how Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was both genuinely great and the most overrated album ever—because back in the 80s, it seemed to top every greatest albums ever list, when in reality it wasn’t even close to being the best album the Beatles ever put out. That’s Robbie Robertson: he’s both genuinely great and nowhere near as great as he and Scorsese think he is.
I mean, yeah, those first two Band albums are unimpeachable. And over the next several years, he and the Band created a bunch more great stuff. He wrote some of the greatest songs ever and he’s an engaging speaker and oh what a guitarist! And, sure, I liked his first solo album a lot at the time, although I don’t think it’s held up, and the next few were fine, but since 1975 he hasn’t produced a single song that’s as good as the stuff on the first two Band albums. Because it turns out those freeloaders grifting on him were in reality responsible for much (most?) of his greatness. (see also: John Fogerty)
Cool open letter to Mark Zuckerberg from Steve Nieve. If you, like me, took high school (or beyond) French, take your time scrolling down to the English translation and see if you can get the gist in French.
https://www.nouvelobs.com/culture/20200506.OBS28461/cher-mark-zuckerberg-que-diriez-vous-de-remunerer-les-musiciens-qui-jouent-sur-vos-reseaux-sociaux.html?fbclid=IwAR1Dc-CL72d9ozC9DBMBqoCFC8awsg8O-7yri2uq9NtiS4iTP-ZtGTa6hXg
I’m sure I must have propounded my Band theory before on RTH but here goes again.
The Band weren’t nearly what they were cracked up to be; it was mostly Dylan.
Before Dylan, they were a bar band, backing up…someone (yeah, I know it was Ronnie Hawkins but nobody would know him were it not for the Hawks). Dylan takes them on and they become instantly part of rock & roll history in arguably the most famous rock tour ever. And they do it bringing Dylan’s vision, that thin wild mercury sound, to life.
Comes a motorcycle accident (maybe) and they retreat to Big Pink and again are part of a mythologized part of rock & roll history with, uh, Bob Dylan. They put out an initial two albums, fantastic albums by any reckoning, but heavily influenced by that stay in the basement. Highlights of the first album were written/co-written by Bob Dylan.
Post second album comes diminishing returns. What’s their post 1970 highlight? Another historic tour in 1974 again backing up Bob Dylan.
And then more mythology with the Last Waltz and then nothing.
It’s really a mighty thin resume and most of it is cribbed from Dylan’s resume.
If Bob Dylan didn’t exist we would have never heard of the Band.
I get your point on The Band, Al, but I stand behind that thin resume. An even thinner resume, but no less valid IMO, is that of Television, who put out ONE fantastic album side – a half of an album – that is nearly worthy of Hall of Fame status. It’s like if Koufax’s arm fell apart only 2 years into his brief, late-bloomer career or Clemente died in that plane crash with only 1500 career hits.
Counterpoint, Al: George Harrison took an advance copy of the first album back to England and shortly thereafter, the Beatles knocked off the psychedelic nonsense in favor of more roots based approach, the Stones begin a new era with Beggar’s Banquet, and Clapton quits with Cream and begins his still ongoing Phase 2 of his obsession with American music after a quick detour into Blind Faith. I think the Band (and Sweethearts of the Rodeo) had a profound impact that is still resonating today.
Mod, I totally agree about Television I don’t even like 2 of the 8 songs on that album but I think that the other 6 alone should be enough to get them into the Hall of Fame.
The interesting thing about Marquee Moon is that you could probably plat See No Evil or Venus for people that never heard it and they probably couldn’t reliably guess the recording year within a decade. I think it might be the most effective recording of all times in terms of the techniques used and how well they’ve avoided sounding dated.
My introduction to Television, and The Jam, was walking into a second hand record shop the day after I’d seen the Stranglers on Top of the Pops with a quid in my pocket and found Marquee Moon and In The City for 49p each. They looked punk so I bought them.
I loved Marquee Moon on first hearing and still do today, I’ll accept the lyrics go a bit astray in a couple of places, but I’ve always focused on music rather than the words so can either ignore or forgive those. It’s a record I return to over and over. I’ve fallen in and out of love with Adventure at various times, for me there’s a lot to enjoy on it. I certainly return to both more often than I listen to Weller or the Jam, I can’t remember the last time I played In the City.
So which tracks would you sacrifice? I’d grant it’s not quite perfect, but I’d give it a solid 9 out of ten.
I think the tracks virtually everybody would ditch are “Guiding Light” and “Torn Curtain.” Over time, I’ve come to terms with “Guiding Light,” but “Torn Curtain” still strikes me as overwrought and misshapen. That said, I still let it play to hear the first phrase in the guitar solo.
Great point, geo, re: the timelessness of Marquee Moon’s production. Man, that album is so great, despite how boring much of side 2 gets. I wish I could remove “Torn Curtain” and burn the master. The other songs just don’t go anywhere particularly interesting.
cdm, your argument only says to me that Dylan gets the credit for all that!
And if you are talking Sweethearts Of The Rodeo I’m talking Rick Nelson.
Regarding Television, I’m in agreement. A fantastic album that alone is worthy of inclusion in any Hall of Fame.
Geo and I are on the same page. The production is timeless and the Torn Curtain and Guiding Light both blow. The rest of it is strong enough to make it a top 5 album for me.
Sometimes there’s just no talking to a Dylan disciple…
“The interesting thing about Marquee Moon is that you could probably plat See No Evil or Venus for people that never heard it and they probably couldn’t reliably guess the recording year within a decade. I think it might be the most effective recording of all times in terms of the techniques used and how well they’ve avoided sounding dated.”
I agree wholeheartedly, but think the best of CCR is up there, in terms of timelessness of sound.
“… you could probably plat See No Evil…”
It’s tough to watch your typos repeated ad infinitum.
Hey Geo and CDM, of the two I think I’d miss Guiding Light the least, Torn Curtain is guilty of mannered and arch lyrics, I guess, but I wouldn’t harm a hair on its admittedly lengthy head. Neither prevent me navigating there on my MP3 player in the car when I’m not sure what I’m in the mood to hear, certainly not in the way Mind Gardens gives me pause when considering Younger Than Yesterday, an otherwise equally flawless album.
Wow, I love “Guiding Light.” If I absolutely had to ditch a song from Marquee Moon, it’d probably be “Elevation.”
I was talking about high school reunions w/someone the other day & I was saying that one of my fellow co-workers graduated in 1964 & her reunions were well attended while they combined my graduate yr. w/the next one (1980-81) & not too many people attend (including myself even though the last one was literally down the street from me). I think one of the reasons among many is how the perception on going to high school has changed. Back in 1964 the big song about school was the Beach Boys’ “Be True to Your School”, but by 1980 the song about school was “Another Brick in the Wall” , by Pink Floyd, which made #1 in the single charts which was pretty amazing considering what else made the chart then.
Having given the matter further thought, I think the one track I’d let go if I had to would be Friction.
I’m finding the lack of consensus over what’s wrong with the album really fascinating.
Hey, Mr Mod, there’s an idea for threads – which track would you have left off this perfect album and why?
Happiness,
That’s a surprise. “Friction” is the hardest hitting track and has some rally hard hitting dissonant chords and great guitar work throughout. It’s hard to cut off the extreme, unless it’s extremely bad, which “Friction” is decidedly not.
I can understand the Oats stance a little better. “Elevation” could be seen as some kind slowed down cross between “See No Evil” and “Marquee Moon”, and possibly not as good as either of those. I prefer to think of it as a compact distillation of those, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as anything on the A-side.
“Guiding Light” seems like a let down because it’s just too far from the main strengths of the band. I don’t generally listen to Television for tinkling piano figures. That said, if I leave my expectations aside, it brings a sound to the album that opens it up and I’ve learned to appreciate it particularly on hearing it through other versions on Television tribute albums. It should be noted that to my knowledge, they never performed the thing live. That says something.
This discussion has made me realize something that I think might be the reason that side 2 seems like such a letdown: putting aside HS opinion of “Friction”, it’s possible that a majority of fans might agree that side 1 has the best four songs on the album, straight up.
I think the only Television fan who loves “Guiding Light,” which I think is one of the stronger songs on side 2, is our old friend Richard Lloyd, because he gets to pull off a heroic, melodic solo.
Possibilities for RTH Movie night. I think the scree share works for Zoom but we should confirm.
Documentaries on Netflix:
– Quincy
– Clive Davis (I never realized how much crap music he was responsible for)
– The Black Godfather (about Clarence Avant, who I had never heard of before but this was pretty good. Basically he’s enormously well connected in the African American community and has be very instrumental in seeking economic equality in the music biz)
– Rush
– ZZ Top (although it sounds like most if us have seen it already)
– Oasis
– Who the Fuck Is That Guy (the story of Michael Alago, a gay Puerto Rican New Yorker who signed a bunch of metal bands including Metalica).
– Echos in the Canyon (Laurel Canyon originals reminisce while Jacob Dylan and Beck play covers)
Documentaries on Hulu:
– The Wrecking Crew
– Standing in the Shadows of Motown
– The Quiet One (Bill Wyman)
– Nico 1988
– Joe Strummer the Future is Now
– Bad Reputation – Joan Jett
– Amazing Grace (Aretha Franklin)
– The Other F Word (middle age punks balance domestic life with rock)
– Jerry Lewis: the Man Behind the Clown (America says he’s a clown, France says he’s a genius. Admittedly this has nothing to do with music but it would probably be pretty funny.)
I don’t have Prime anymore but they had a bunch of good ones as well.
I love Friction. Any song with spelling in it gets a critical upgrade.
This is such a strange conversation, it feels like being asked which of my limbs or senses I’d be most accepting of having taken away.
If the house was on fire and one track had to be sacrificed to save the rest, I’d very reluctantly part with Friction, but I’d prefer to get them all out if I could.
I would coax Torn Curtain from the safety of the front lawn back into the burning house.
I had no idea people hated Torn Curtain so much until this thread. It doesn’t strike me as any more ‘overwrought’ than the title song. I like the outro guitar solo as well as the one in the middle, and I like Billy Ficca proving that he can do his stuff on a slow song.
And people really don’t like side 2 in general? You know, you can’t have an album of ten songs that all burn like See No Evil. I guess maybe you could, but that’s not this album. I think this goes back to Verlaine’s view that Marquee Moon gave an inaccurate picture of what the band was really like, or at least what he wanted it to be like. He think Adventure sounds more like his vision. I respect that, and I like Adventure (and the later self-titled album), as well as Verlaine’s solo work. But I definitely am glad that they made Marquee Moon before they reverted to type.
When I see this clip, I wish Television had remained this band, and just gotten a lot better than this. Marquee Moon, especially the first side feels like that.
It’s a mess, but well worth at least flipping through and sampling:
https://youtu.be/kcGEcB5M4es
And as far as Marquee Moon not sounding like Verlaine’s vision for the band, hell, that’s true but that’s the problem. Verlaine had a genuine misconception bout elements of the band that really made them special. The prime example was his feeling that Ficca’s drumming was too busy to be commercially viable. Billy Ficca was far and away the element that made “Little Johnny Jewel” so great. He is consistently creative and outstanding on Marquee Moon. If Adventure was more on line with Verlaine’s vision, his vision apparently included making the drumming competent and faceless, maybe roughly, or exactly, like Jay Dee Dougherty.
I’ve read the RTH Lloyd interview, read his book and seen him enough to know what a nutcase he is, but I actually might believe his claim that he quit Television because they could only contractually use the name if the line up had three of the four original members, and he felt like Verlaine was pushing to get rid of Ficca.
I wouldn’t call it a misconception. All bands are shifting sets of balances and tensions. Often a temporary balance that is most satisfactory for listeners is not sustainable for the band. Look at Marquee Moon — they couldn’t even sustain it for a whole album, according to people in this group.
Btw I was reading the Marquee Moon Wikipedia page to check who was playing which solo, and I read that Torn Curtain and Guiding Light were the last songs written:
“During preparations, the band rejected most of the material they had written over the course of three years. Once they were in the studio, they recorded two new songs for the album—”Guiding Light” and “Torn Curtain”—and older songs such as “Friction”, “Venus”, and the title track, which had become a standard at their live shows.”
Just seen that Little Richard’s gone.
What a bloody week…
He was a great man!
A 1964 BBC clip to rival that James Brown one from Italy: http://www.chimesfreedom.com/2020/05/09/its-little-richards-1964-tv-special/
And a 1972 BBC interview that is a scream: https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/little-richard/zdrgt39
Here’s a parlour game for you – find a Little Richard obituary that doesn’t refer to him as flamboyant.
Al, entirely by luck I found this one, be happy to see if anyone else comes up with another!
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/may/10/little-richard-obituary
I think the author of that one anticipated Al’s observation and pulled out his thesaurus to use “exhibitionist” instead of flamboyant. Truthfully, the sentence would have sounded better with “flamboyant.”
I’m sure you’ve all been wondering how Mike Love is handling things during the pandemic.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/beach-boys-mike-love-interview-quarantine-this-too-shall-pass-997485/
I think Mike Love just about got away with that one…
Oats, your update is MUCH appreciated! Thanks, man, I feel much better already.