Apr 102008
Check out this live 1970 Fairport Convention performance. It’s a perfectly captured moment in time, if not necessarily a moment we need to relive that often. The colors, the outdoor lighting, the band members getting smothered by the anti-popping mic covers, the light breeze blowing through Richard Thompson’s perfect curls, the music! This makes The Youngbloods‘ color performance of “Get Together” and more seem like gagsta rap. You don’t believe me? Check it out!
The audience for that Youngbloods clip looked like a colorized clip of the old grannies who applaud bits in Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Thanks for these clips, Mod. The Youngbloods are pretty unbearable after that Fairport cut, but notice the incipient Psychic Oblivion, perfectly defined by their difference from the audience and the host. They’re leaving all that behind for sure on their way to look out over the ocean.
Gong. A friend of mind dropped a bunch of their music on me about a year ago. I liked a moment or two of it here and there, but gawd, talk about fussy, pedantic, and pompous. I’ll take spacey Pink Floyd over it any day, thanks: a reminder that one of Floyd’s strengths, oddly enough, was pared-down simplicity.
I’m with you all the way, Mwall. Thanks for verifying my Psychic Oblivion suspicions.
Two perfectly captured moments in time:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LEi1-FSec24
note the sychronization at 1.20
then there’s:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ELd9r7wJw3M
RIGHT ON on both counts, Saturnismine! The MC5 are SO much better when you get to see them. I like their records enough, but the energy and showmanship they put forth in the few clips I’ve seen of them playing live make up for their shortcomings as songwriters and record makers.
right on, and thank you, brother moderator! i agree with your agreement!
There’s definitely a connection, though that era of Floyd is positively blokeist compared to that clip. Gong also appeared to lack the at-times fascinating musical tension that arises when one member is vastly better at his instrument than everyone else in the band.
Now that’s what I call eating the mic. And here I thought Lux Interior invented that.
To try to answer the third question, playing like Fairport requires some research, as well as vocal and instrumental precision. Playing like Gong (at least in that clip) requires only access to psychedelic drugs, echo machines, and the id.