Oct 182007
In a recent thread that developed to a healthy subthread, Townsman Mwall spun it one stitch further and asked:
What was the moment in your life when you most compromised your musical values for some other purpose. Getting wasted, getting it on, getting paid, all strike me as possibilities here, but there may be others.
In the interest of frank confessions and inevitable healing opportunities, I bring this topic to the Main Stage. You’re among friends. Even the best of us have had moments where our usually strong Rock Values have waned. I look forward to your sharing – and our collective healing.
Good topic, Mwall. As stated previously, for me, perhaps no band that I can only tolerate and occasionally enjoy in small doses more than the Grateful Dead once had a better overflow of worthwhile side benefits worth compromising my musical values now and then. They provided ample opportunities for getting passed a joint or bong, and there was always that possibility of finding a good-looking, loose Deadhead women with thankfully low standards for getting it on. Yes, years ago I listened to more Dead bootlegs than my strong musical values demanded in the company of Deadheads who were “holding.” I distinctly remember borrowing Dead bootleg tapes from a Deadhead woman I had a big crush on just so I would have an excuse to return them to her and spend more fruitless minutes in her dorm room. Despite what I suggested, some Deadhead women had their standards in check.
I once held my tongue through an evening of Jimmy Buffet’s greatest hits for what frankly turned out to be some rather mediocre tail. The game was not worth the candle.
I once sat through a Sting concert at an outdoor ampitheater. I got the tickets as a present for the girl I was dating at the time. It turned out that concert was so bad that even she didn’t like it and Sting was her favorite musician.
I once listened to a inspiring story of a date who had presented Steve Winwood with a bouquet of roses during his performance of “Higher Love” at the Spectrum. The song had gotten her through some “hard times” and she wanted to thank him.
I am not such a rock taste-making fundamentalist that I felt the duty to shout out that Steve Winwood, and especially “Higher Love”, suck. I instead chose to tap into her misplaced passions.
Should I be proud? Maybe no, but then again pride is a sin.
-db
Hey I finally found something to disagree with dB about! I haven’t liked every phase of Winwood’s career, but I certainly wouldn’t issue the blanket judgement that he sucks. And I just listened to make sure, and Higher Love is still a great record.
What’s up with db these days? How can anyone hate on Winwood? I don’t even like “Higher Love” a lot, but I think the guy had a nice back catalog of work right up to Arc of a Diver that justifies his not-horrible later ’80s albums.
Win-“d”-wood sucks. db didn’t actually say that though. I did.
Well, if it was you who said that, Mwall, I’m not surprised.
What, are you guys going to defend mid-eighties Clapton records because you like the Yardbirds? I like the early Traffic and Spencer Davis Band as much as the next guy (I have that nice sepia tone double Winwood lp that collects all his early periods together), but his resurgent 80’s hits are down their with Phil Collins in my highly authoritative, heavily footnoted book. That horribly bright production and Stevie’s blue-eyed rasp intoning me do something positive from the lite rock station at the Wawa. Eek! That’s too much modern day life for me.
You’d really drop the needle on that in your leisure time? Maybe you wouldn’t turn it off on the car radio but I’m just as shocked that Big Steve and The Mod would mount a defense of him. Maybe I’ll chalk it up to the power of that turquoise impressionistic image of its cover.
I used to go to Temple University’s Ambler campus 3 days a week for some college with my friend Erik. He was a fan of Phish. I compromised my musical taste and let him listen to that shit in my car, not for drugs or anything, but just to be a fair, balanced carpooler and a decent friend.
However, I hated every note of it and couldn’t wait until it was my turn again so I could pop in some quality cassettes, like Ice T’s O.G., Sugar’s Copper Blue, and Tin Machine 2!
Vive’ la 90’s!!!
She liked to make out to Andreas Vollenweider. I was willing to go along with that.
I suppose I shouldn’t write the later Winwood music off. It’s not as good as Steely Dan of course, not as good as the Eagles or even some solo Henley, and not even quite as memorable as late Doobie Brothers, but if I’m cruising down the highway and want to open up my shirt just a little, without quite touching the edge of psychic oblivion, well, at a time like that, Winwood goes down almost as well as a good Snapple lemonade.
I was just thinking that, as a solo artist after having been in an immensely popular band, Don Henley’s records stack up surprisingly well. “Boys of Summer” is a killer song, one of the best of the decade.
You’ve all heard there’s a new Eagles studio record in the pipeline, no?
D-Bus sez:
You’ve all heard there’s a new Eagles studio record in the pipeline, no?
I exhort:
Cue the discussion of Hotel California!
I saw Winwood play some time in the 90s, and it was really professional in the best sense of the word, with music from all phases of his career, though I admit that in person he has this completrely blank look in his eyes that’s kind of disturbing.
I just listened to Back in the High Life all the way through, and I still like it. I’ve long said that people are so hard on the 80s production style, and I refuse to believe that using a DX-7 and Linn drums automatically equates to instant suck. And on the song Higher Love I like the lyrics about the connection between physical love and spirituality, which you don’t hear much in rock & roll.
And btw I was so infatuated with this record that I bought its follow up Roll With It without hearing it, and I found it pretty much devoid of interest, so I can’t vouch for his even later work.
Steve, I think you saw a simulation, not the real Steve Winwood. The real Steve Winwood checked into the Hotel California some time earlier, and as you know, he can never leave, although it’s quite possible for his simulation to hit the chart several times before it wears out.
I got your back, hrunndi.
Mr Mod Wrote: What’s up with db these days? How can anyone hate on Winwood? I don’t even like “Higher Love” a lot, but I think the guy had a nice back catalog of work right up to Arc of a Diver that justifies his not-horrible later ’80s albums.
I can’t hear an 80’s Winwood song without thinking of Marge. A former…….vendor…yeah, that’s it….. I used to visit. She was a complete Winwood freak.
Trolleyvox wrote:
So far, this is the WINNER!
Let the healing continue!
2 memorable things happened when I was a young idiot, neither of which is a skin crawling moment. I certainly have nothing that could get in the ring with Mr. Vox’ disturbing admission! But once during the one amorous activity that threatens to make any young man laugh out loud for sheer self-congratulatory joy, the song that came on was “Duke of Earl.” I gave in to the impending laugh as quietly as possible. And here I must say that during my first time with a woman I was to see for years, a synchronicitous mix tape came up with Mr. Mod’s own relic cover of “Goodnight Sweetheart.” I knew she and I were destined for romantic bliss of some auspicious sort!
Winwood recently went up fairly majorly in my estimation. There was a huge dance hit in Europe a few years ago called “Call On Me” by Eric Prydz. I had assumed that the hook was sampled directly off of Winwood’s old ’80s hit “Valerie” (my personal fave of the ’80s Winwood tunes, incidentally), but it turns out that Prydz actually invited Winwood to re-sing the part himself, which he did to very good effect. As trashy techno records go, it’s a very good one indeed.
It also has a hugely controversial video, as seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-2iwGeZ2O4
The controversy for intelligent people is quite simple: Are they (1) fuckin’ kidding me, or (2) what? I personally fall squarely on the side of door number one. This video is so utterly over the top that there is simply no way that the director didn’t meant for it to be funny.