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Fun, Fun, Fun

Posted by al

Jul 032012

The Beach Boys, Columbia, MD, June 15, 2012.

I suspect I have been to/go to far fewer concerts than most of my fellow RTHers. And I’d guess I’ve seen far fewer acts as I tend to see the same folks over and over.

Still and all, I’ve seen some shows that I think would inspire envy: Springsteen from second row center at the Tower in December 1975; Dylan’s 4-hour club show at Toad’s Place in New Haven; Beefheart, Talking Heads, and Costello in the very early days; Sinatra a couple of times…

But 2 weeks ago I saw what may have been the best concert in my life. which I suspect many of you won’t believe; I can hardly believe it myself. I’m talking about the Beach Boys’ 50th Reunion Tour.

First, the back story. (I’ve told some of this before but can’t find it to provide a link; maybe it was back in the RTH v1 days.) My kids are Beach Boys and Brian Wilson fans from back in the day when I could control the radio dial / cassette player / CD player in the car. We listened to oldies and Brian and the gang naturally figured prominently. So they’ve known the classic BB songs since they were toddlers.

In 1997, I took my daughters, then ages 9 and 6, to see the Beach Boys (of course without Brian but with Carl, who was only to live a few more months). It was the first time I had seen them as well. It was a fine concert that the girls absolutely loved. They sang along, danced in the aisle and still talk about it 15 years later.

In 1998, when Brian was promoting Imagination, he did a signing session at Borders in downtown Chicago. I took my daughters and my then-18-month-old son to meet Brian.

My daughters had been listening to and loving the Imagination album and were excited to meet Brian. We drove 2 hours into Chicago (we lived 35 miles northwest of the city but 2 hours wasn’t unusual for that trip), then waited 45 minutes in line. My daughters, in anticipation of meeting Brian, had drawn a poster for him. It contained little pictures depicting each song from the album. When it was our turn, they presented their original poster to Brian, while I explained what it was. Brian, sadly, didn’t acknowledge the poster or my daughters or son or me at all. He kept his head down, scrawled his name on the copy I had had made, and that was it. On the way home, my 7 year old, bless her heart, said that the whole thing was kind of disappointing but still she was glad that we went and she had the chance to “meet” Brian. (To add insult to injury, 6 years later his Getting in Over My Head album had a cover with little pictures depicting each song. I’m not saying he stole Kate & Rebecca’s idea, I’m just saying…)

School House Rock: Precedents & Antecedents

Posted by al

May 142012

I’m a pretty big fan of Bill Withers. Live At Carnegie Hall belongs on any Top 10 list of albums.

I ran across this quote in the September 2011 issue of the UK magazine The Word. Regarding Withers, David Hepworth writes “Withers is an exceptional artist. No obvious influences and no musical descendants either.”

I read that line and immediately thought it outrageous but then couldn’t come up with any obvious influence or any musical descendants either.

Can you?

Or can you think of another artist who meets those criteria?

Name That Name

Posted by al

Apr 162012

Spoiler Alert: Grumpy Old Man Ahead

Here’s the track listing from the CD accompanying the March 2012 issue of The Word:

Field Music – Start The Day Right
Team Me – Patrick Wolf & Daniel Johns
Phantom Limb – The Pines
Hundreds – Happy Virus
Chuck Prophet – I Felt Like Jesus
Folks – Avalanche
Speech Debelle – X Marks The Spot
Lovecraft – The Beast
Dodgy – What Became Of You
Am & Shawn Lee – Somebody Like You
Band Of Skulls – Wanderluster
Hooray For Earth – Last Minute
Mike Doughty – Na Na Nothing
Alex Highton – I Left The City
O’Hooley & Tidow – The Last Polar Bear

I was 5 tracks into the disc before I knew whether the band name or the song title came first.

What’s happened to band names?!?! I tell you, it’s another facet of EPG’s contention that there’s been no good music since 1983.

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when band names were recognizably band names AND they were cool. C’mon, will anybody seriously argue that Panic! At The Disco is a cool name?

Types of band names changed over time, they followed trends, but they were recognizable.

I’d like to enlist the collective wit & wisdom of to catalog the eras of band names, create the time line. Can we fill in the time from 1955 to 1983 (or further if you insist there has still been music since then)? You define the time frame, you describe the band name category, you give the examples.

I’ll start it off.

1967-68: Psychedelic names, like Strawberry Alarm Clock, Ultimate Spinach, Electric Prunes…

The State of The Union

Posted by al

Feb 092012

Has anyone caught the Cameron Crowe-directed documentary on the Elton John–Leon Russell collaboration that premiered on HBO last week?

I am an unabashed big fan of Leon Russell. I think his early ‘70s albums were as good as it gets. (An early RTH thread on best string of albums probably didn’t mention Leon Russell, Shelter People, Asylum Choir II, and Carney but should have.)

I always liked Elton John’s early hits and had his first two albums. He’s also an artist that I have grown to like more and more as time passes. Back about a half-dozen years ago I bought all the early albums when they had the reissues cheap at the BMG club and was pleasantly surprised by just how much I liked them.

So, not unsurprisingly, I greatly looked forward to The Union, the Elton-Leon collaboration that came out in late 2010. And if it wasn’t as great as I wished it might have been, it was a lot better than I feared it might be – and that’s not as much damning with faint praise as it sounds.

I greatly enjoyed this documentary. It’s really Elton’s show but then so was the collaboration. The backstory, for those who need it, is that Russell was a great inspiration and hero for Elton way back when. They hadn’t been in contact for decades and somewhere along the way Elton became aware of Russell’s circumstances—Russell’s apparently pretty much broke, playing small clubs, health issues—and Elton wanted to get him the recognition he (John) feels he (Russell) deserves.

Once and for All: Who Launched Country Rock?

Posted by al

Jan 172012

In the recent Laura Nyro thread Townsman alexmagic made some hyperbolic statements regarding Mike Nesmith. (Seriously, Mike Nesmith “is the most indefensible omission from the Hall of Fame?” I think I could successfully defend his exclusion from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as easily as I could defend his exclusion from the Baseball Hall of Fame.) However, he touched on one point that I think the uni-mind that is Rock Town Hall should explore, to whit, the thought that Mike Nesmith is “often given credit for launching the ‘country rock’ genre.”

There seem to be a lot of candidates for that. There are The Byrds, whose Notorious Byrd Brothers showed a bit of country and was released in January 1968, or the more often cited Sweetheart of the Rodeo, released in August, 1968. The latter made it all the way to #77 on Billboard and featured a number by another candidate for country rock launcher, Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.”

And there’s Graham Parsons & the International Submarine Band, whose Safe At Home came out in 1968. Wikipedia says their b-side cover of Buck Owens’ “Truck Drivin’ Man,” released in April 1966, is “now largely considered the first country rock recording.” It starts at 2:11 of the following clip:

He Saw The Future of Rock & Roll (& I Wish He Hadn’t)

Posted by al

Oct 202011

I was listening earlier to some early Springsteen and thought, not for the first time, that I wish Bruce had never gotten involved with Jon Landau.

[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/07-Thundercrack.mp3|titles=Bruce Springsteen, “Thundercrack” @ The Main Point, April 24, 1973]

I have been a fan of Bruce since the first album and loved the second album and have always thought that it was all downhill (as far as recordings go) from there. The next few albums were still great but nothing matches the looseness and the freewheeling musical aspects of The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle. After that it became increasingly codified & repetitive.

And that started when Landau got his clutches into Bruce. Coincidence? I think not.

Not that I think Landau was Col. Parker to a compliant Elvis. Bruce certainly was complicit in it. But it’s hard for me not to think that Bruce would have been a lot better if Landau didn’t sand off the edges, give Bruce a mentor for that politicization he underwent (and I’m not one of those who thinks artists shouldn’t be political—it’s fine with me and I agree by & large with Bruce’s politics—I just don’t like what it did to his music), & prime him for mega-stardom.

Agree? Disagree?

And what other pivotal events in rock & roll history do you wish never occurred?

Why Do You Think They Call It Rock & Roll?

Posted by al

Oct 032011

Check out this video from Big Mama Thornton:

Now you show me a song/performance that oozes sex more than this one.

I don’t know much about Big Mama. I didn’t realize she was still performing in 1971. She would have been 45 years old then and looks a decade or two older. Looking at other videos—and you’d be wise to check more out, especially this one:

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