Today we launch another chapter in our ongoing effort to squeeze some fun and entertainment out of popular music’s banality, with a segment I call: In a Word — Schtick!
Here’s how this is going to work: contestants will vie for the coveted RTH No-Prize by attempting to use as few words as possible to describe a vital component of a given performer’s “signature” move, or Look, or some other thing by which he, she, or the group is identified. The goal is to have RTH readers guess the artist in question with the schtick-clue provided. The fewer words used, the bigger the prize awarded — and prizes are only awarded to townspeople who can provide a clue that elicits a correct artist ID on the first try. You lob a schtick clue into the void, and hope the first guess that comes back is the right one. If it is, you win! If it isn’t, it’s the dreaded buzzer for you.
For example — if I wanted you to guess “Keith Richards,” I might submit “drugs” as a one-word clue — but chances are that clue would be too broad, and somebody might incorrectly guess “Sly Stone.” BUZZ! If, on the other hand, I offered the schtick-clue “skull-ring” — that might work.
A few ground rules are in order:
- God-given/natural aspects of appearance or behavior are not allowed as clues — so, for example, saying “big lips” to get us to guess Mick Jagger would result in a buzzer. But “omega shirt” would be okay.
- Dialog is only appropriate if it was part of the artist’s schtick, and no famous one-time quotes qualify — so “thank you very much” is allowed for Elvis, while “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!” is not allowed for John Lennon.
- No song lyric snippets or alliterated riffs are allowed. It’s about the schtick!
I look forward to your responses.
HVB
All right, I think I’ve got this: let me throw out a schtick clue and see if a Townsperson can identify the schticker on first effort:
Duckwalk
Bzzzt. Back to Remedial Rock School for you, HVB. It was Ringo who screamed “I got blisters on my fingers!”.
Chuck Berry.
jumpsuits.
Take that pince nez, HVB!
Van Halen?
I get buzzed!
I’ll try again: karate.
Strike that! For some reason I had a vision of early VH in jumpsuits. Damn! BUZZ!
Sorry, man. This is going to be a real trust-building exercise.
Karate has got to be Elvis!
http://www.collectorsquest.com/uploads/blog/2011/05/marvel_no_prize.jpg
suicide
DING!
I’ll try again – and sure, this is a softball for my man HVB, but I think it’s important we establish the point of this game, right?
High scissors kick (I think that’s what you’d call it)
Not sure that qualifies as “schtick,” but… Cobain?
Diamond Dave?
Torn jeans
Indeed!
Ian Curtis
The grunge genre was founded on torn jeans, but to me no rocker’s jeans were as torn as Dave Pirner’s, from Soul Asylum.
Capuccino
Windmill arms.
Here’s an easy one:
High Kick
Nigel Tufnel hair
Sorry -Mr Mod beat me w/ D:R
Here is another:
Spastic
Jeff Beck
Either you or I suck at this. Trying again: Converse hi-tops
Pete Townshend!
Elvis Costello
DING!!
nope, it’s a band schtick in a way.
Ramones. Isn’t it supposed to be ONE word?
Style Council
Joe Cocker
Snakes
DING!!!
Alice Cooper?
Ding!
Ding, but to your second point: the fewer the words, the bigger the prize upon guessing. Delivering a successful one-word schtick-clue is pretty manly.
Pirate gear
Runes
Adam Ant
Wall
Jimmy Page
Badfinger?
DING
I say ONETWOTHREEFOUR is a better clue for those guys…
Spinal Tap
DING!!!!
Buzz
Ding!
Pirner was a much better answer than the Ramones. Hand over the No Prize!
Ian Dury would have qualified, too. He wrote a song about it, didn’t he?
Pink Floyd
Cape
I’ll go James Brown.
james brown
Microphone lariat.
Yes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n62J9-WP1A
Roger Daltrey
(When I think “lariat” I immediately think “Stan ‘The Man’ Hansen.”)
glove
Michael Jackson
DING!
Flip (NOTE: This does not involve a rocker who’s already been the answer to another schtick.)
Nils Lofgrin?
Ding!
dreds
Another No-Prize Winner!
dreads, I mean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVn9z9_mvM0
but also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Iyul69NjbA
Not to toot my own horn, but that was pretty good, huh? Ok, to toot my own horn.
You know, until I just read cher’s slight misspelling of LofgrEn’s name I never realized that his old band Grin may have been named after the sound of his name.
That was good. I would have pegged BigSteve as Most Likely to Have Gotten That One.
This is dangerous territory. I’m going to rule out Marley on the “god-given” exclusion clause. Dave Pirner, on the other hand, worked for his white-man dreads. (Pirner’s got to be the right answer for something.)
Bob Marley?
If not that then the Counting Crows schlub.
I was posting simultaneously there. They wouldn’t have been god-given if he’d brushed his hair, surely?
Woooo!
Square gee-tar
Sorcery
Bo Diddley!
The Velvet Foghorn?
Ah, I was thinking Marley. Are dreads god-given? you have to grow them.
ding
Dio
Maybe not god-given. Maybe I had the moment about 7:45 into the following clip in my head:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq54moBSgP0
BUZZ!
I apologize for not giving as specific a clue as possible. How about this one:
Lace
Stevie Nicks
335
Flute
Carnivore
Ted Nugent
Dinng!
Ian Anderson
Alvin Lee
Rats, oh well. Not who I had in mind…
Bingo
Glasses
Costello
Buddy Holly
tube socks
Muu muu
Elton John
Eyeballs
Capp
erm, good guess, but not particularly warm
Mod, I’d love to see a version of this – maybe under Password, Taboo or $10,000 Pyramid rules – played and recorded for a future episode of the Saturday Night Shut-In.
Residents. Marty Feldman didn’t have a band, right?
Mama Cass?
Ding!
Burnt setlist
Little Richard
Ding!
DING!
Chuck Berry, no?
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Yeah, this may be reason alone to hold another live event. We may have to stop the game before we use up all possible answers.
Please clarify: is the second “p” intentional?
Hook
Poop
Great White?
Most definitely.
The Barbarians
Of course!
Not as far as I know, so it must be the Residents.
Too soon…*
*…to pick comment of the month?
GG Allin. I would have gotten his with a clue of “he passed” as well.
Ha!
Ding!
Make-up
Ding!!
KISS (or NY Dolls, or Katy Perry)
Midget
No “or” choices allowed. Choose one!
KISS
Chameleon
DING! (Thank you.)
I was just pointing out how flawed your clue was.
I think if we could figure out a way to do it under one of those alternate rule systems, we’d be good. For example, if I were to say to you:
“Celebration of the Lizard…Beatles on SNL…Worldwide Texas Tour”, you would say?
The non-Bonn singer from ACDC?
Giant Inflatable Penis
Bowie?
Trabants
There you go.
Certainly!
http://www.up-to-date.com/bowie/heroes/pictures/chameleon2.jpg
Roy Orbison
Oh yeah… but not who I was thinking. Rats again.
Wow, that was terrible. I might as well have said “Strat.” Was thinking BB King, though Berry is probably a better answer.
Is that a U2 thing, from their Berlin period?
Rotten schtick-clue! I was thinking Elton.
Stones
Schoolboy
Angus Young!
No-prize!
Yep.
Plastic hats
Dickens glasses
Poncho
Devo
Roger McGuinn
Frank Sanpedro. Just kidding, Steven Stills.
electrical tape
Stills!
Wendy O. Williams!
Beehives
I’ve never seen a picture of Dickens in specs. Do you mean Dickensian glasses?
We always called the type of specs that McGuinn wore “granny glasses”.
B-52s?
Yesss!
Yes!
Yep!
And a double-reverse pince nez on you, too!
Kid Rock
Afro-rake
Reel-to-reel
Cape
HVB: BUZZ!
I did cape already. It’s still James Brown. Come on, man, I think you owe the Hall an apology.
Good one – ?uestlove, or however he spells that name.
Sorry. MY cape was going to be Rick Wakeman. Try “reel-to-reel”; I wonder how many of us will get that one. Remember, this artist’s reel-to-reel is part of a schtick!
Wow, you’re good!
Clock
I hear you. Sorry to come down so hard on you, but as this thread proves, you are a crucial figure in the Hall and we expect nothing but the best from you.
Fripp and his Frippertronics?
Nice. I was stuck on Al Capp and wondering if he was part of John Lennon’s schtick.
ZZ Top on RTH’s Bullshit On series.
Socialism
Flavor Flav
Ooh, how about that ’80s synth-pop guy and his band – Scritti Politti?
Right on time!
True dat!
Maybe too vague. Add Cockney
Tartan
Billy Bragg?
Slade!
Correct, sir
I would have gone with Rod Stewart
Not bad, but kind of period-specific.
P.S.: I’d go with the Bay City Rolelrs as a backup.
Skip Bittman!
Double-neck
aloha
LD
LOL!
Leslie West?
Sorry, that would be double-chin. I believe you’re describing the schtick of Jimmy Page.
DING!
aloha
LD
and DONG!
aloha
LD
(going for an alliteration certificate here)
Star-Shaped Stone-Studded Sunglasses
aloha
LD
Ooh, I’m sorry, we were looking for “Things That Never Happened”…”Things That Never Happened”.
Ahh… the name is Bootsy, baby!
sandbox
Brian Wilson?
Good job!! I worried I’d have to quash some Elton guesses.
aloha
LD
“Hello. I’m…
Simon & Garfunkel
aloha
LD
Or John McLaughlin. He famously played a double-neck in the Mahavishnu Orchestra days.
Got it.
Southern Comfort
Johnny Cash
Janis Joplin
Socks
BAM!
aloha
LD
I was going to put Pirner’s clue as white boy dreads.
Chainsaws!
Einsturzende Neubauten.
Yup
RHCP
Glyph.
DING
Jackyl
Plasmatics!
aloha
LD
The Purple One Who Shall Remain Nameless?
aloha
LD
Ding!
Armpit hair.
Already mentioned above.
Now that’s a post of the month contender!
Bay City Rollers is the answer I was seeking.
Patti Smith!
Score!
The lead singer from Nena.
R. Pollard.
Knives
“How ya dooooin’?”
aloha
LD
Keith Emerson?
aloha
LD
Adidas
Good one! Run DMC.
ding!!
EDDIE!!!
aloha
LD
The singer from The Soundtrack of Our Lives?
After we get through RaoulG’s last 2 head-scratchers (I’m going to kick myself when I find out what “How ya dooooin’?” is), try this one on for size:
Teeth
Shane McGowan
Stool
No, that falls in the “god-given” category. The teeth I have in mind are all about schtick.
GG Allin was already used, god rest his soul.
A day late and a dollar short as usual.
Seriously, I’m thinking you’ve found the schtick clue to describe Jerry Lee Lewis, when he gets up from his piano stool and kicks it aside so he can start banging on the keys and letting his hair flop forward.
Is that Paul Stanley’s go-to stage patter on those KISS Alive albums?
Iron Maiden?
Jerry Lee would be a very valid guess, but I’m thinking more of “sitting on a stool”. Perhaps I should have permitted myself more than one word.
If those teeth are God-given, I’m becoming an atheist.
Crass, dude. Reminds me of the elementary school joke:
Q: What’s brown and sits on a piano bench?
A: Beethoven’s Last Movement.
Fripp again? Most other stool-based musicians I can think of are folky and, therefore, following an established convention.
Fripp is whom I’m thinking of. He always has played sitting on a stool, no matter how wild and out there he got.
Not familiar with that and not what I’m thinking. Pretty sure my guy’s fairly well known for this greeting, both on-stage and interviews.
aloha
LD
Good Get!!
aloha
LD
Correcto!
Killing Joke?!
aloha
LD
Powerslide
big suit
bottle blonds
checkerboard
I guess Mick is ruled out by the rules.
Nugent?
David Byrne
The Police
Rick Nielsen
Scarves
Skeletons.
Townshend?
aloha
LD
Purple
Steven Tyler?
aloha
LD
Flamingo
Lefty
Queen Freddie!!??
aloha
LD
Eddie Money? His daughter?
(I don’t know if this is his schtick, but it seems like what he’d say if you ran into him on the street).
BUZZ! Correct answer is Jimi Hendrix, who played guitar with them.
Hendrix
Grateful Dead
Elvis
That’s a good one! I was thinking about what might be the clue for him.
That’s who I would have thought, although I can see why Elvis would come to mind. My Mom got a scarf from Him in 1975 or so. I should have her pull it out from wherever she keeps it when I see her this weekend.
Prince, who took that gimmick from Donnie Osmond and his socks, right?
Leotard
Jimmy Buffett?
Or Paul McCartney.
I’m curious to hear who suffices for this clue who was not born that way. It’s just the way god made some of us, BigSteve.
Correct!
Skunk Baxter
Kate Bush?
The rumor of live cattle
Guit-steel
Beards!
Fox head hat
ZZ Top. Also, Beards!
leather vegetarian
psychic oblivion
Freddy Mercury
PEOPLE!
funny but it was indeed a stage thing
Ooh, good point. High lefty five!
Barbra Streisand?
mwall!
That sounds like Chrissie Hynde to me, although maybe that’s pleather she wears in those early photos.
Good guesses so far, but not the mainstream, slam-dunk answer I was seeking.
Right back at you, brother!
Is that that guy you like, Junior Brown?
Ding! That always struck me as an oxymoron. She rationalized it as the cow was already dead.
Ha! His schtick is “no trend”.
Asia?
Really? I don’t know about her, but the meat I eat also comes from animals that are already dead.
Beer
Yeah, but I suppose you can wait until a cow lives out its “natural” life to get their skin, you probably don’t want to be waiting so long to eat those suckers.
One-Note solo
Seger?
Let me add another word:
PEEEEOOOOPLE!
Robert Pollard
Yes, Pollard!
Pat Benatar. And the problem is not the guesses, it’s the clue!
Cult
Paul Stanley
What would your clue have been? Should I have branded that outfit: Danskin? Please advise for future schtick clues.
(You’re lucky, by the way, that I’m really busy in work. Otherwise I’d be tempted to compute who has compiled the highest “batting average” so far in terms of providing clues that are guessed on one try.)
People, this guy right up here, this guy in the front row, he GETS IT! Listen people, when KISS comes to your thread, we KNOW you want us to ROCK YOU, people, and that’s what we’re gonna do, people, because we know when you’re out there in your miserable jobs, reading a thread with 330 replies, thinkin’ “maybe I oughtta do it, maybe I oughtta end it all”, people, we know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for ya, a reason to keep goin’, and people, that reason is you’re gonna come to this thread for a ROCK ‘N ROLL PAAaaaaaAAARTY! Anyway, this next song’s called She’s So European!
Or BTO, for whom the schtick-clue ought to be “fat Canadians.”
yes!
No to both.
Could be Neil Young or Johnny Ramone. I’ll go with JR.
I know, but this reminds me of fat vegan Prince Fielder and junkie vegan River Phoenix.
Oh yeah sorry. I was thinking Hendrix. I guess the schtick was playing a right-handed guitar upside down.
Yes.
The odious Steven Tyler was the one I was thinking of.
I was trying to respond ‘yes,’ and I got this error message:
“Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!”
That’s a new one on me.
Didn’t Peter Gabriel wear one of those things in early Genesis performances? (If I’m right about this I’m ashamed that tonyola didn’t beat me to the answer!)
Hunting jackets
Kinks
thinking of the first.
It’s not so much that they love animals, they just really hate plants.
Rimbaud
Yep!
I know, too easy.
Ricky Martin?
Or Stevie Nicks.
Yes. My other schtick for Sting would have been “eee-aayyy-ooo”.
Verlaine or Smith. I’ll got with Patti Smith
“go with”
Nice one!
Alternate clue: “mugging”
Not the Money. Guess this is too obscure for Good Schtick. At what point should I give it up?
aloha
LD
DING! DING! DING!
pink fedora
Are you sure you don’t want to guess two answers?
Isn’t that your boy, the bassist for J. Geils Band?
Wasn’t Jim Morrison the first rocker to play the Rimbaud card?
I almost scarfed my yogurt, mockcarr!
Here’s one, and the punctuation is crucial to the clue:
Incest?
Has this been neglected simply because it’s so easy an answer? But you gotta admit, it’s Ultimate Schtick:
MopTops
aloha
LD
Indeedie do.
Spirit?
The show must go on: The Beatles!
Yuck! No, I wasn’t thinking a father-son dynamic.
I thought of him – and you – the other day during the Dave Grohl thread. Talk about a guy who had too distracting a Look for lead vocals but just the right Look for his role as bassist!
White Stripes?
aloha
LD
YeahYeahYeah!
aloha
LD
You are correct, Mod!
Iron Cross
aloha
LD
Right on!
Lemmy
E! E G E D C B!
aloha
LD
D’OH! No. I was thinking Orbison.
I gotta friggin’ get my schtick together
aloha
LD
Wart
Wouldn’t that be “god-given”?
Yes, courtesy of an angry god. BUZZ! on HVB, our otherwise sterling Master of Fun and Games.
Good point! I was just trying to be clever, pointing out an actual Lemmy trademark. But you’re right… I get the buzzer!
You would be wise to follow this man’s example, Townspeeps!
HVB, you ARE the man!
Zither
Waif
Lovin’ Spoonful!
This is *exactly* the kind of schtick I had in mind. “We’re not like every other guitar-pop band with bowl haircuts and a minor hit under our belts… we play ZITHERS!”
Bjork? Or maybe Marc Bolan?
How about my bad news girl Fiona Apple?
BINGO!
Marianne Faithfull?
Babes in Black/Red Lipstick
Chris Robinson?
Might as well face it…
Robert Palmer
Sisters
Jeez, how did I miss that one!
All good answers but I was thinking of Juliana Hatfield.
Heart!
The Roches ?
Nelson!
aloha
LD
Patti.
Zither? I though that was an autoharp.
Touche!
D’oh! Opening song from her album Made in China — “New Waif”
Bing!
Karate? Jumpsuits?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qORYO0atB6g&ob=av2e
aloha
LD
Mod, I’m proud of you (although would take umbrage at characterization of “synth-pop” for his early stuff).
Other “socialist” musicians that came to mind, whatever that term means musically, would included Henry Cow and, I believe, Robert Wyatt.
nice!
Boho Hobo.
Tom Waits
CLANG! I mean, DING!
Explosives
Keith Moon?
BLAMM-O!!!
Aquatic drunkenness…
Dennis Wilson? That was no schtick!
Jimmy Buffett
If you haven’t noticed, this post has set the new RTH record for Most Comments Ever!
DING!
Messianic
That’s show biz!
Bono?
Bingo!