Here’s your chance to shine on one or a number of seemingly dull questions!
A couple of days ago Townsman Trolleyvox passed along an RTH-worthy question that he picked up from WFMU DJ Mike Lupica. Lupica asked, and we will too, What’s the best band that you ever got turned onto by your sweetie? It doesn’t have to be through marriage, it can just as easily be some ridiculously popular or obscure band that you first heard through an (ex/current) boy/girlfriend, or general heart throb of any stripe.
I’ve been listening to a collection of ’80s underground sensations The Embarrassment this week. I’ve long liked them since stumbling on them as the first opener for PiL and Naked Raygun in Chicago shortly before the release of The Flowers of Romance. They were a great, down-to-earth, humorous, punky pop band that never made much of a splash and would lead, in part, to the formation of another down-to-earth, high-spirited, punky pop band that I loved, Big Dipper. Anyhow, listening to them this week has had me thinking of at least three questions:
- What bands around today rock in a “down-to-earth” fashion?
- What’s your favorite precurssor band to a later band that you also love (eg, The Embarrassment to Big Dipper, The Move to ELO, The Beatles to Wings, Uncle Tupelo to Wilco), with emphasis on love for the precurssor band (ie, simply “listing” a precurssor band to show how much you know will be discounted if no sincere love is attached)?
- What’s the best opening band that you stumbled across without warning?
Finally, as we wrap up an entertaining and enlightening week on Rock Town Hall and head into the weekend, let me know what you think of the following songs that, over the last few days, have made me feel there’s still something worth digging anew.
This first one was particularly enlightening. It’s a song I’ve always loved in its original form but I love all over, in a new way, in this version, which I’d owned for some time but which had never previously made an impression on me before.
Barbara Lewis, “Ask the Lonely”
Here’s another number that I’ve known and loved by Al Green, but this one’s cool too.
Eddie Floyd, “I’ve Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)”
Here’s one of the songs I overheard in a Toronto record store in early May that caused me to pull $10 CAN and plunk it down on the counter for my first Hawkwind album – this stuff is totally unlike what I’d expected (ie, something more hippie/prog, along the lines of Gong).
Hawkwind, “Orgone Accumulator”
I downloaded most of a Curt Kirkwood (Meat Puppets) album from eMusic that I had never heard about when it was released. It’s pretty good – much better than the stuff they put out in their ZZ Top phase.
Curt Kirkwood, “Gold”
– that the beatles could be “some other band” fronted by a lousy singer named billy shears.
– art di furia plays al dimeola?
– pink.
– ‘hella good’ by no doubt.
– i wanna hold your hand….
– i say i like ‘all kinds of music!!” with a great big smile, and ask them what kind of music THEY like. i usually find other people more interesting than me anyway, so the conversation becomes about them right away.
I don’t know if this is a dumb concept as it’s been done time and time again by countless bands, but that whole Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines thing really bothered me. I just couldn’t look at him and take it seriously.
Clapton does Robert Johnson! Oh, wait…he did that…McCartney does The Beatles…mmmm…did that too…I guess the McCartney doesn’t count because he wrote them, but can anybody explain why he rerecorded those songs for his movie soundtrack WITH GEORGE MARTIN?!? I’m sure it had something to do with that weird Columbia deal he had in the early 80s. There was money driving that one. But I digress. I’m interested in this Lloyd project…
David Lee Roth wins any bleached contest. He looks like an albino Hair Club member these days.
I was asked to play some wedding/engagement party a few years back. As a result I learned a couple of “requests”. One of which was “Wonderful Tonight” (what’s with all the Clapton hating I’m throwing in this post?). I still have it in my notebook and will play a couple of bars for a laugh.
I have always been bothered by Lennon’s proclaiming that he was “gonna love you til the cows come home” in “When I Get Home”. A marginal song at best is made even more marginal by these lyrics.
“I like Bulgarian folk music like Bon Dylan and The Who.” It really depends on who asks determines my answer…I take the easy way out.
TB
Tommy is pretty stupid. A Christ-like pinball champion kid as sung by a leather-throated tough? Man, I bet Lifehouse would have been even goofier, but at least that had a muscial idea at it’s core somehow. However, I suppose any of the Jethro Tull ones are dumber. I’ll pick A Passion Play since I sold that sucker back as fast as I could. The meh music and ponderous lyrics were such that I never even bothered trying to figure it out.
Bruce Springsteen sings Roy Orbison
Is Shakira rock? I admit I don’t really look at her hair. I could be boring and say Debbie Harry.
Limelight by Rush. Works out those octaves for my little hands.
“I don’t care too much for money” from Paulie.
“Secular.”
what is the dumbest concept around which a concept album has been constructed?
Anything having to do with a futuristic totalitarian regime being toppled by the redemptive power of Rock e.g. 2112 or that Mr Roboto album
Can there be any other Artist B Plays Artist A album with a higher degree of difficulty?
Scarlet Johansson sings Tom Waits. As an aside, my band is opening for Richard Lloyd in about 2 weeks. I could not be more psyched. He’s in my Pantheon of Guitar Gods, and that’s just based on about 6-7 songs.
Who’s got the best bleached hair in rock history?
Iggy circa 1974
Musicians, what’s a bad or cheesy song that, although you don’t like, you can’t help but play a few bars of at least a few times a year when handling your instrument of choice?
There’s a big difference in my mind between Bad and Cheesy. For instance, I love cheesy 70s AM pop and might bust out a little “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes” every now and then.
What Beatles song lyric is least convincing coming out of the mouth of its Beatles singer?
“You better run for your life if you can…” That wouldn’t even be scary if he was still hopped up on amphetamines and wearing his leather jacket.
When “straight” friends and colleagues ask you what kind of music you like, how do you answer?
I usually say “all kinds” and then qualify it with some general example like “70s punk, 60’s soul, 50’s R&B and honky tonk”. Then I ask what they’re into. If they say “all kinds” or “Oh, I listen to everything” but neglect to give some examples, I take that as a bad sign because to me that means that they will just listen to whatever is served up to them. If they say “Billy Joel”, I usually just walk away from them in mid-sentence.
Dumbest concept — Probably that wives of Henry VIII album, but hey it’s Rick Wakeman, so what do you expect? Most unfortunate — The Raven. I love Lou Reed, but have so many good people ever worked on something so misguided? Btw I’ve got Fork in the Road on now. It’s eccentric, but it’s Neil Young, so what do you expect?
Degree of difficulty — I think turning around the original concept and doing Newman Sings Nilsson would have been funny.
Best bleached hair — Billy Zoom
Bad or cheesy song — The only thing that comes to mind is that I sing a nice, slow version of Whitney Houston’s I Want To Dance With Somebody Who Loves Me, but I decheese it.
Least convincing Beatles lyric — Happiness Is A Warm Gun
Like saturn I say “I like all kinds of music,” because otherwise it’s hard not to tell people more than they want to know. If someone asks my favorite artist I say Bob Dylan and hope the person doesn’t want to argue with me.
BigSteve wrote: “If someone asks my favorite artist I say Bob Dylan and hope the person doesn’t want to argue with me.”
I write: This made me laugh. I had a friend who used to say that because he was *looking* for arguments. It’s all about context!
I read that Neil Young’s new album, Fork in the Road, was inspired by his alternative-energy car. If this album is not the one, what is the dumbest concept around which a concept album has been constructed?
That Styx album with Mr. Roboto on it that they didn’t even name after robots. Man, that was dumb.
Friend of the Hall Richard Lloyd has a new album coming out that pays homage to Jimi Hendrix with 10 loving Hendrix covers. I’ll be curious to hear this. Can there be any other Artist B Plays Artist A album with a higher degree of difficulty?
The Commodores play Devo.
Who’s got the best bleached hair in rock history?
Dale Bozzio. Then again, maybe that was her natural color. The pictures in Hustler certainly didnt make it clear if the carpet matched the drapes.
Musicians, what’s a bad or cheesy song that, although you don’t like, you can’t help but play a few bars of at least a few times a year when handling your instrument of choice?
Thank god I’m not a musician if you guys have to deal with that kind of pain!
What Beatles song lyric is least convincing coming out of the mouth of its Beatles singer?
We all live in a yellow submarine. I bet you do.
When “straight” friends and colleagues ask you what kind of music you like, how do you answer?
Noisy crap that would give you a headache.
— I am trying to decide which Roger Waters concept is the stupidest. I think it’s a draw between The Wall and Radio KAOS.
— Maybe if Brian Jones had lived, after playing on “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) he’d have tried to do a John Coltrane tribute.
— I like the vote for Debbie Harry.
— Time for my semi-regular smackdown of “P.S. I Love You.” Though maybe “Little Child” or “Hold me Tight” would also qualify.
— “I like a lot of British stuff.”
More recent wine-dumping and fake-leg stealing claims aside, Paul singing his half of John’s “I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved. Man I was mean, but I’m changing my scene and I’m doing the best that I can” in Getting Better.
I just straight up headbutt them, soccer style. Saves time.
I’m slowly catching up after a day out of town. So far I’d say that among these many great answers, BigSteve’s Billy Zoom (rock’s greatest bleached hair” is the most “right” answer of the bunch. The answers to the least-convincing Beatles lyrics are of especially high quality. Keep ’em coming!
Aerosmith-Done With Mirrors
Van Morrison does Dean Martin
Billy Idol
Makin Out by No Doubt
Norwegan Wood because you know he cheated on her ALL THE TIME, not just that one time.
Gay Music-Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys, Boy George, Bronski Beat…
CDM,
When and where are you opening for Lloyd?
Musicians, what’s a bad or cheesy song that, although you don’t like, you can’t help but play a few bars of at least a few times a year when handling your instrument of choice?
Every time I play my bass at a gig I play “Carry On My Wayward Son” and/or “The Chain” as my sound check
Best bleach-blond – STING
Best Bad Concept? – Kilroy Was Here (Styx)
Beatles Question: “Talkin’ ’bout Boys, What A Bundle of Joy!”
Some one gave me a copy of The Fat Boys “rap opera”” ON & ON in 1989 when a worked at Tower South Street. I left it by mistake down in receiving for a couple hours and it “disappeared”, never to be found. In fact I’ve had low-range curiosity about this release for twenty-years now. Does anyone know if ON & ON is the best or the worst concept record? It seems like it would be at the top or the bottom, rather than in the middle somewhere.
GEO,
We’re playing at Johnny Brenda’s on Monday 4/20. It’s us, Beretta 76 and then Richard Lloyd at 9,10, and 11.
Jungleland,
I love the Chain and don’t consider it cheesy or bad in the least.
Kelly Clarkson is singing the national anthem at the first game at new Yankee Stadium?
I guess I should be glad it’s not Billy Crystal.