Nov 152008
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If you need to open your mouth this is the place to do it.
Feb 022007
All-Star Jam. Share your innermost feelings here. How ’bout a few questions to prompt said innermost feelings? Here goes:
- What do you think about the stage presence and Look of Pavement in this clip? Who’s less engaged, the band or the audience? Most importantly, what’s up with the guy playing tambourine in-between bites on an apple (he’s featured about 2 minutes into this clip)?
- Are you cool with anything but round tambourines? As a musician or a fan, do the newfangled, plastic ones with the padded hand grip bum you out just a little bit?
- Contrary to my belief that some multi-album releases would be improved if cut down to an EP (see Exile on Main Street, All Things Must Pass), are there some multi-album releases that are improved by the extraneous album? I’m thinking of The Clash’s Sandinista, in which the extraneous third album actually casts the extraneous second album in a positive light.
Have a fantastic weekend.
18 Responses to “All-Star Jam: Week in Review Edition”
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See, *this* is a good example of how the Velvet Underground fucked things up for rock and roll. You think this completely lackluster, yet ever so “cool” performance wasn’t delivered with Lou Reed’s iconic I-could-give-a-shit-about-the-audience ‘tude in mind? I’m telling you, that guy and the critics who shoved their nose up his ass back in the day really fucked things up for the rest of us. Mach fucking schau, willya?
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What Lou Reed concert have you seen where he doesn’t give a shit about the audience? Every time I’ve seen him he’s into the music. He’s not doing duck walks. He’s no longer referring to the local football team, but it’s nothing like the apathy you see in this performance.
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See, *this* is a good example of how the Velvet Underground fucked things up for rock and roll.
Do you want to open a Rock Crimes case along the lines of the VU influencing minors, or something like that? I’m not saying I’d testify on that behalf, but years ago I brought Bowie up on similar charges.
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What do you think about the stage presence and Look of Pavement in this clip? Who’s less engaged, the band or the audience? Most importantly, what’s up with the guy playing tambourine in-between bites on an apple (he’s featured about 2 minutes into this clip)?
Although I can see that it would be a shame if all bands were this affectless, I don’t think everybody must mach schau all the time. It takes all kinds.
Tambourine guy is Bob Nastanovich, who was kind of a utility player in the band (that’s him doing the keyboard intro), and I think he was also involved as occasional songwriter and ‘conceptualist.’ Acting casual (like eating an apple) was obviously part of the Pavement approach.
Btw in case you’ve ever wondered what kind of electric guitar I play, the other guitar player (Scott Kannberg) is playing the exact same kind of Tele as I own — a shit-brown Tele Custom with maple neck.
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BigSteve, I’m with your thoughts regarding Pavement’s Look and presence in this clip and others I’ve seen. Maybe this is influenced by the fact that I’ve come to like Malkmus over the last 2 years. I have heard about that utility guy, but I didn’t realize how free-flowing he could be. Would he be considered a feel-good utility man?
Anyone have any thoughts on the value of extra tracks on an album, either a second or third album of questionable material?
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Are you cool with anything but round tambourines? As a musician or a fan, do the newfangled, plastic ones with the padded hand grip bum you out just a little bit?
Yes I’m fine with it. I had one that was shaped like a crescent moon, and moving the center of gravity inward made it much easier on the wrist.
I was thinking after that Monkees clip was posted how at one time it seemed like all vocalists were expected to shake tambourines and/or maracas. And then there was the handheld cowbell period (think Bloodrock and the Chambers Bros. Time Has Come Today). I am not nostalgic for those days.
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I have heard about that utility guy, but I didn’t realize how free-flowing he could be. Would he be considered a feel-good utility man?
You mean like Chas Smash in Madness and Bez in the Happy Mondays?
[light bulb] Thanks to you I’ve got an idea for a new career path for me — ‘feel-bad utility man.’ It goes along with my new catchphrase that never seems to catch on — “It’s all bad.”
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Ok, somebody has some splaining to do — Elvis Presley as “the luckiest musician ever in the history of rock”?
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BigSteve wrote:
Ok, somebody has some splaining to do — Elvis Presley as “the luckiest musician ever in the history of rock”?
Likewise, what’s with the diss on Teicher?
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I think Pavement changed a lot in their later years. Earlier records were fun and had a lot of energy and the band would really tear it up live. I saw one show at a packed Khyber where Malkmus was jumping all over the stage.
At some point, though, they started writing more languid songs, as if they were trying to live up to their slacker reputation. I don’t why they did this (as evidenced in the clip), but it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with VU/Lou Reed.
Dr. John
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How much of Pavement’s performance there was “feeding off” the lame audience? Als, isn’t that a later period song? I was wondering if the band was bumming out about the crowd and the feeling that the end was near.
Their bassist, by the way, sports some bad, lank hair, ranking up (down?) there with the munchin-coiffed bassist in Death Cab for Cutie.
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Yeah, if I were playing in front of that crwd crowd, I probably wouldn’t be that thrilled either. I mean it almost looks like performance art the way the band is going through the motions. And that wouldn’t surprise me because the band has always exhibited a high degree of intelligence and humor about their situation: several times poised on the “breakthrough” moment where they had to cultivate a more “popular” or “entertaining” persona. In a way, Pavement is sort of commenting on the way they are being put on display in the musical marketplace, an attitude which is more of a punk influenced “blankness” than anything else.
Dr. John
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I come clean. Teicher was entirely facetious. It has never been pointed out to me which parts were which, nor whether there’s any difference. I was partly busting on the question as phrased, and am pretty sure that Big Steve at least smirked, even in the Back Office.
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I’m the bad man who doesn’t see the godliness in Elvis Presley. From a purely musical standpoint I certainly have more respect for and get more enjoyment out of the black musicians he “influenced” off. And as far as his label mates and peers at the time I think Cochran, Vincent, Jerry Lee (if that’s a fair comparison) had more passion and soul in their music.
Certainly Elvis was better looking, had immaculate presence and charisma but musically speaking (and I’m not saying he was ham-fisted btw) I think that his status as a rock and roll icon makes him the luckiest musician in the history of rock. And isn’t there some story about Carl Perkins set to perform Blue Suede Shoes (his song) on TV before Elvis but then got a in a car wreck?
I don’t think that Perkins could move his hips like Presely and thusly wouldn’t have achieved the fame but still… pretty lucky for Big E.
The poll said “musician” so I’m judging him on that scale, not on his accomplishment as a performer and rock and roll evangelist which he certainly deserves high marks for.
I just think he was in the right place at the right time with god given good looks, animal sexuality and a helluva back up band. That to me is luck.
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Dammit, I voted for Art Garfunkel but then it came to me – Miami Steve/Little Steven Van Zandt! Can I change? Or can someone else vote for him, pleez?
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The uninspired band, the uninspired crowd and the formless song coalesce into the perfect shrug. My favorite moment is at the 1:25-remaining mark, when some girl walks by in the back of the crowd, pauses for about two seconds and walks on.
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I just saw a decent unapologetically derivative boogie-rock band called Flynnville Train (opening for Toby Keith) and I have one question: How the FUCK did it get to be 2007 before somebody finally wrote and recorded a song called “Tequila Sheila”?
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How the FUCK did it get to be 2007 before somebody finally wrote and recorded a song called “Tequila Sheila”?
How did it get to be 2007 and you don’t know how to use AMG to discover that Bobby Bare recorded a Shel Silverstein song by that title?
Is the drummer playing with Thai sticks?
Hola Townsmen (and women?):
FYI: There are changes underfoot in these parts. If things seem a bit hinky for a bit, there’s a rhyme and a reason. All will soon be revealed.
Turn to face the strange.
(Or is it Turn to face the strain? My wife and I have a disagreement over this.)
Café Tacuba is a fantastic band, and everyone should give them a listen.
I will be available for hand holding following the coming change.
To those of you who watched the just-completed 13-13 tie between the Eagles and Bengals, congratulations for having watched the most excruciatingly incompetent game in the history of the NFL!
Mod, you should still be basking in that World Series win. Can’t have everything, you know.
I’m not that invested in the Birds, Mwall, but I came home from coaching my boy’s soccer team’s last game, which went from a tight 0-0 tie at halftime to a 5-0 blowout (at our expense) about 10 minutes into the second half, and then tortured myself by watching an overtime of ineptitude. I know, life’s hard! I just read a chapter in my Felder autobiography and felt a little better.
Pullin’ a Linkerson here, but check it out:
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE4AG4C720081117?feedType=RSS&feedName=lifestyleMolt&rpc=22&sp=true
Who in hell voted for Led Zeppelin’s best song as “Stairway to Heaven”? Fess up.
It was I. I don’t like Led Zeppelin.
Re: Links Linkerson’s link to McCartney releasing the “Carnival of Lights” piece, which Paul’s long touted as evidence that he was avant-garde before John
Paul, when are you going to publish your autobiography, I Could Have Had Yoko First?
BigSteve steppin’ up to the plate!!!
Hey I just painted my fake japaneeze plywood EBO bass like THE FOOL in the NAZZ viddy. Still sounds like shaft but looks WAY cooler…
Does anyone else think that break in ‘Open My Eyes’ is #GREAT#? Like a swift uppercut to the third eye after a flurry of left hand jabs…
Donovan McNabb claims he DID NOT KNOW that an NFL game could end in a tie…maybe he was waiting for the shoot-out?
Yes, and McNabb compounded that stupid admission by saying something like, “I’d hate to see what happens in the playoffs or the Super Bowl.” Lord, I hope the guy was joking.
New All-Star Jam:
Who’s digging the new Sirius-XM lineup? I love getting access to Underground Garage! Monopolies agre great!
Ties should be decided by the field goals, just like what happens at the end of most close games in regulation. BUT, it should be using that plastic football game where you have to pound the kicker on top of the head to make his leg go foward.
I was Sirius. So XM is new and I’m loving Deep Tracks the Big Band channel and The Joint.
I was Sirius, too. I got it because I didn’t like XM, so now I get this diluted form of Sirius. Did they start playing more Beatles on every station, or is it just me?
I’m kinda pissed to lose XM’s genuinely really good classical station in favor of Sirius’ kinda crap one.
My question: I’ve had both for a couple years now. When do I get to stop paying two bills?