Aug 312012
Shock me, Townspeople, with some buried secret from your rock ‘n roll past. Not small-potatoes stuff like the fact that you kind of like Supertramp or the time you and a friend once stole 70 record albums from a suburban mall record store. Not the time you were hanging with another friend who convinced you it was all right to break into his friend’s parents’ house while they were on vacation so you could listen to the Elvis Costello & the Attractions‘ Imperial Bedroom while getting high! No, I mean really shocking stuff, like the fact that you have simply got a soft spot for David Bowie‘s Let’s Dance.
It’s RTH Confessional time, my friends. Shock me.
I’ve always like Leo Sayer’s “Just a Boy”.
I didn’t learn until I was almost 40yrs old that Gary Wright sang “Love is Alive” and not Steve Winwood. About 30yrs of mistaken identity there. Also thought it was Winwood singing “Drift Away” until I was about 25. Just got a man-crush on Steve, I guess.
aloha
LD
I liked the occasional Destiny’s Child single. I also enjoy female rappers.
After reading Suburban Kid’s shocker above, I can admit my fascination with Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”. What a Frankenstein monster of jerry-rigged gay dance-pop with absurd video with obvious sponsored product placements jammed in with imagery stolen from serious art wankers like Matthew Barney.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I
That’s a lot of effort to produce and sell a pop song!
In Omaha NE in the mid 80’s, some friends and I who were well, well past the legal limit, were in a bar in which two sullen guys were playing Smith/Cure-like music on acoustic guitars. My friends (unprompted by me) badgered them into letting me play a song. What song did I choose? The maudlin, treacly poo-fest that is He Went To Paris by Jimmy Buffet. I know that being drunk is not a valid excuse and I accept the responsibility for my actions. I wish I could say that I feel better having confessed this but I really think this would have been a secret best kept tamped down and taken to the grave.
Also, I like I’m Like A Bird by Nelly Furtado.
I like that Nelly Furtado song too!
We should hold hands next time we hang out.
I unabashedly love this album:
http://www.amazon.com/Stargazer-Digitally-Remastered-Games/dp/B006VYWONU/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1346419446&sr=8-6&keywords=games+stargazer
Sorry I can’t find a youtube link but at least the amazon site has previews of the songs–enough to understand the “Olivia Newton John meets Yes in a disco phase” comparisons.
I’m sure you will feel much better throughout the day for having shared this experience.
December 1978 — just before Christmas — in Dayton’s department with my brother — two teenyboppers. We buy two records — Bruce’s Darkness and Toto’s first album.
It took us about a week to figure out that Toto sucked, but we were excited to buy it at the time. Lukather got some of my paper route money!
I have no problem with Lady Gaga, other than she is over now. Mainstream pop is better when it has mutant weirdos, no matter how calculated.
Yes! Judgmental looks from a Furtatophobic society be damned!
Wow, I never heard of them before but your description is dead on. I know this tread is about healing and all, but I feel that you should consider being at least somewhat abashed about listening to this album.
Wow. I don’t think you have to go quite that deep here on the Internet. That kind of love might best be kept to yourself.
I bought Gary Wright’s Dream Weaver the same day my friend bought some Kiss album. I think we were 13, and I told him Gary Wright was the kind of thing you’ll love even when you’re old, because it was just that good.
I think by the time I was 15 I hated every second of that album, and I think as the years have gone by I’ve come to like it even less.
Lady Gaga is already over?!?! Commercially or artistically? That seems premature.
I would agree that she is over based on what I’ve heard of Born This Way . Madonna retreads, 80’s sax solos and heavy-handed playing to the audience she gained the 1st time around. I’m doubtful she can pull a full re-invention.
I bought a Howard Jones album once (…but it was the 80s and everyone was doing it).
I also went to an Asia concert once..but ONLY to see Steve Howe play live.
My wife also found a Chris Cross album in our collection…but I really can’t explain how it got there (no really).
I have no use for the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.
I was in a band in high school and we did Asia’s “Heat of the Moment.”
In my earliest days of liking hardcore I bought Black Flag’s Jealous Again EP from the record store in the mall. I played it for like a week on 33 not even realizing I could switch my turntable to 78. Hey, it was my first EP.
To this day, I think the slow, grungy, sludgy sound of the 33 version was way cooler than the intended 78 version.
I do not own one single David Bowie album. I’m a fan, but I never got around to it.
I’ll raise you 2 Howard Jones albums and a 12″ single. Jupiter-8, baby!
OK, ok…the guilt is killing me…I actually had two Howard Jones records (one was the extended play single) and I used to play his stuff on my 2 1/2 octave Casiotone keyboard (which I still have).
But I’m still not owing up to the Chis Cross album…It must have been my sister’s (honest)…”the canvas can do miracles…just you wait and see…”
Got get me one of these…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt1N_FP5HSU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
After Mr. Mod posted a song by “Little Boots” as an example of something horrible, I went out and bought the album. It’s a pretty good pop album!
Oh yeah, and I don’t like rock music.
I LOVED Howard Jones’ “Human’s Lib.” That album was a frequent listen, alternated with Paul Young’s “No Parlez.” I could probably sing all the words.
I don’t like the Rolling Stones, either.
When I was dj’ing, we got a single in from Roger Miller/No Man. I think it was called “The Crank.” To this day, I can’t figure out the correct speed to play it.
Although I am a very law-abiding citizen (over zealous super ego, plus, plus), when I was younger, I was a bit of a rebel. Bottle rockets smuggled down my pants and set off in the Phoenix Colosseum during The Cars, 1981 or so. But I am more proud of a later consciousness-altering achievement: pouring a considerable amount of Jack Daniels into two baggies, double bagging them and then stuffing them in to each side of my bra. Early Wonderbra technology! And certainly search-proof. Later taking E at a rave in Manchester, UK paled in comparison to the experience of having large, alcohol-enhanced breasts.
Yeah – got that one too (it’s all coming out now) and probably wore out the “Come Back and Stay” track. Despite praise for it, however, not a big fan of his “Love Will Tear Us Apart” cover…sacrilidgr
Oops…slipped on the old touch screen…sacrilege.
78? Or 45?
I have a friend who used to play a 45 of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” at 33, said it sounded more like an authentic reggae song that way.
Great stuff, so far. Truly shocking and healing. In this All-Star Jam of shocking confessions longtime leaders like HVB, BigSteve, Oats, and alexmagic have been strangely silent. One of them must be holding something so profound that it will atone for the sins of others.
This changes everything, ladymiss.
Ok, I’ll admit that this was a favorite from that album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cxijK2TWIk
I don’t recall that at all. I just looked her up and found this, which annoyed me by the first chorus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUs9YzY7t-8
Do I still get to collect turn-on points?
Oh, I forgot to say that the baggie experience was for a Depeche Mode show. Jack Daniels does not equal Depeche Mode.
That makes the story even more ridiculous.
I have “a soft spot for David Bowie‘s Let’s Dance.” I mean seriously what is everybody so upset about? Bowie has made all kinds of albums from avant garde to top of the pops and everything in between. This was designed to be popular, and it’s a good album.
yep, that’s the one. what can I say, I’m a sucker for a cute gal with a stylophone.
The first version of “Sittin’ on the dock of the bay” I ever heard was Glenn Campbell’s. When I heard it recently for the first time in eons, I thought it might still be better than Otis’ original.
I bought the mobile fidelity gold disc a couple of years ago. It is Dream Weaver as it was meant to sound.
That’s okay. I like them enough for both of you.
I don’t know…I think I’d need to be REALLY drunk to sit through a Depeche Mode concert.
I find Nirvana to be pretty damn near worthless, along with the horrible, boring phase in popular music they ushered in (not that the one which directly preceded it was any good, but I had hopes things might go a different way); one of sludgy, whiny, early 70s metalesque (w/out the technical proficiency of the real thing) bands who somehow glommed onto the notion that they were “punk”. They weren’t. They were just bad metal, without the visual entertainment value…or any visual entertainment value, really…Flannel? Gimme a break. Cobain may have been a hero to some, but he never meant shit to me. Also, I don’t care how nice a guy Dave Grohl is, his music, to this day, is always crushing bore.
John Peel would regularly play things at the wrong speed and have to take them off and cue them up again. Often he would play records with no indication of what speed they should be played at, running through several before settling on one that sounded less weird than the others.
I’ve described elsewhere walking away from the turgid sludgefest that was Nirvana’s “triumphant” Reading Festival appearance. With you on that one Bobby
My fondness for the music of Terry Jacks is already documented in the Hall. Given how many deeply unfashionable artists I’ve championed who have later become widely acclaimed I look forward to the day when we can all walk down the street singing “Seasons in the Sun” at the tops of our voices without shame.
I am also very fond of “Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro, and often listen to Roger Whittaker in the car when no-one else is present.
From age 5 to 32, I assumed Roger Whittaker was a fellow Canadian. He sure looks the part.
In school we had to sing a french version of “Old Durham Town” called “Mon Pays Bleu”.
“S’est envolé, oh volé, volé, volé, volé, vole…”
I remember, Stan, and, by the way, welcome back! I was working in independent music wholesaling around the time those clowns hit big, and I remember the Brit music mags we got at the office (NME, Sounds) and their raving about Nirvana at that festival. I knew it had to be a load…I’d seen ’em in a club in NYC, and was equally unimpressed. Their rise also meant it was a lot harder to sell stores the kind of hooky, garage punk/pop bands who were around at the time that I was a fan of, and had hoped would be next trend, if even on a small scale…I guess it took another 10 years for that to happen, with The White Stripes – (“2001: The Year Garage Broke”)…and most of those “garage” bands weren’t as good as the ones from the 80s/early 90s…just like the 90s “punk” in the form of lousy grunge bands. It’s no wonder the music business barely exists anymore!
The “Tiny Dancer” singalong scene on the bus in “Almost Famous” always brings a tear rolling down my cheek.
MUA-HA-HAAAAAAA!
Kidding.
Hadn’t heard her before, only listened to the song without the video but I could imagine enjoying an album’s worth of that. My family gave me a stylophone a few years ago, I always enjoy taking it on holiday with me and playing it when Mrs H is safely out of earshot.
Wow, Little Boots is super cute. That song is a pile of elephant dung.
Perhaps. I admit I was glibly quoting my teenage daughter on this one. (“All her original fans hate her now.”)
Ladymiss, you were years ahead of the curve(s): http://www.thebeerbelly.com/The_Winerack_Small_p/200-007.htm
That’s actually the first version I heard as a kid too. But I do like the Otis version better.
I argued with my baby-sitter in 1976 that the Bay City Rollers were a better band than the Guess Who.
That’s nothing to be ashamed of and in fact, you might be on the right side of that argument.