Black Friday quickly approaches. ‘Tis the season to share our favorite music with (un)suspecting friends and relatives, support the artists, and provide additional fodder for RTH discussion. What 2010 releases did you most enjoy and would recommend to our community of discriminating listeners?
Here is a partial list (not necessarily in order of preference) from the Royale household:
As last week’s episode of Saturday Night Shut-Inshould have made clear, I still dig the simple, sugar-charged confections of the rock ‘n roll I cut my teeth on: no questions asked. My musical Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups never get old! As rock ‘n roll and rock fans (myself included) matured it was hard not to look down our noses at some of the similarly sugary pop confectioneries of our late-teen years.
For my generation that would have been a band like the Saturday Night Fever–era Bee Gees. A little later there were bands from my youth that fell between the age of childhood innocence and my college years, the musical versions of Twix (introduced in the US in 1979), in my case, like middle-school discovery from a few years earlier, ELO. In my college years, as I yearned for music a little more sophisticated or passionate or political—or anything that might make me seem more interesting to women and rock sages—I questioned the value of the Twix bar. Was it too much a newfangled kid’s candy for me to be seen eating? Reese’s was old school, classic, even “cute,” in the eyes of a nuturing young woman. Twix, in the early ’80s, like the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and ELO, didn’t make a woman my age get all soft and gooey in my presence, at least not the women I wanted to get soft and gooey. And it goes without saying these newfangled pop bands held no weight with the older rock sages I was simultaneously looking to impress.
Then a funny thing happened, at least in my world: rock sages determined that Bee Gees albums from the ’60s were actually pretty cool! Next it was discovered that, prior to ELO, Jeff Lynne joined an obscure (to American rock nerds) ’60s band called The Move. They were definitely cool, with reports of them smashing TVs and cars on stage yet still not getting remotely popular in the States, unlike their instrument-smashing contemporaries, The Who and Jimi Hendrix.
By this period I was deep into buying somewhat obscure albums by ’60s artists, blowing a dollar here, fifty cents there on possibly overlooked gems by the likes of The Association and, yes, The Bee Gees. Then I got wind that The Beach Boys carried on for years without an even remotely sane Brian Wilson at the helm. I thought, A lot of pain and suffering had to have gone into those albums! They must have been, well, not better but more interesting than my childhood favorites, like “I Get Around.” The rock sages were all about pain and suffering, and I was beginning to learn that a number of attractive women dug those qualities too. Sure enough, although not chock full ‘o hit singles, late-’60s Beach Boys albums like 20/20 do deliver songs with unexpected depth and charmingly rough edges. We dip into one of these songs in this week’s episode.
Toward the end of this week’s episode, I ask Townspeople to help me clear up a shocking discovery on my presssing of Charlie‘s No Second Chance. I’ve either discovered the most unexpected growth in the shortest period of time in music (ie, in the time between sides 1 and 2) or I’ve stumbled across something akin to finding an original draft of the Declaration of Independence behind an old picture frame left behind in the attic by my house’s previous owner!
This week, inspired by a recent conversation with my teenage son, I dip into my childhood singles collection, a scratchy, fingerprinted mess of ’50s through early ’70s nuggets, many of which were given to my by my then-mustachioed, wide-collared velvet shirt-wearing, piano-playing, baseball-and-music–loving uncle. It was a fine preteen rock ‘n roll education, in which I learned the values of kicking it out, midrange, walking basslines, chooglin’, and patience for the big payoff in a 3-minute single that seemed to last forever when I was 11 years old. Through the years I’ve also continued to dig the extra visceral charge provided by the gradient, as my sophisticated son puts it, or surface noise, of these old records. Maybe you will too. Enjoy!
I encourage fellow Townspeople to contribute their own episodes. Contact me off list if you’re interested. We already have a couple of Very Special Guest Shut-Ins lined up!
I’m going to try something new tonight that’s long been considered but not the slightest bit approached…until I finally put a few hours of work into a Rock Town Hall podcast, which I’m calling Saturday Night Shut-In.
Tonight’s inaugural edition is 33 minutes and 32 seconds of scratchy, old vinyl selections (other than our digitally developed theme song) as well as a couple of snippets of your very own Mr. Moderator’s commentary. (That’s right, I won’t be quitting my day job.) Some of our very own Townspeople are name-checked for their influence on my recent stack of records sitting in front of my stereo!
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-1.mp3|titles=Rock Town Hall’s Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 1]
If this in any way adds to our listening and bullshitting capabilities, I’d be happy to make it a running series and encourage you to contribute your own podcasts. Enjoy!
After a long, rainy Thursday in the Philadelphia area, I’ve got nothing to say that you want to hear this Friday morning. Instead, I’ll let some tunes do the talking. Enjoy.
Originally published January 30, 2007. (I’ve since acquired an iPod but stand behind these views.)
A lot of my friends ask me why I have held out on the iPod revolution. “Hey, Mr. Mod,” I hear almost weekly, “why are you still holding out on the iPod revolution?”
They tell me I can carry 85,000 songs with me wherever I go. They tell me I can hit Shuffle and not hear the same song twice for the next 3 years. They tell me the iTunes store has almost everything. They tell me I can just delete the songs I’d have to skip on vinyl or a CD. They tell me about the weird and wonderful combinations of songs that just happen to pop up in random order, say Funkadelic’s “Can You Get to That” followed by Glen Campbell’s “Galveston” followed by something from that Outkast soundtrack album, which really wasn’t that bad.
Truth be told, whenever I hear about one of these fantastic random sequence experiences a friend had, I don’t know what to say. It’s an I had to be there moment. I had to be in my friend’s head. My friend’s bopping along in his or her little iShuffle, headphones helping to mainline the grooves, and there’s little room for me in the equation. I can’t dislodge an earbud from my friend’s ear and share in the iGroove, can I?
It used to be, when faced with the faraway eyes of an iProselyte, I’d go on some rant about how I didn’t want to be beholden to the Apple Empire, dammit! That never quite cut it. I don’t know if it was my delivery or what. Then I tried blaming the earbuds, but someone was bound to point out other headphone alternatives that were much more comfortable, that had better sound quality, that blocked out all surrounding noises. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand,” they might say, “it’s hearing the damn pilot tell me we’re now flying over Lake Michigan when I’ve got some Mothers cranking.”
I regret the years I tried to convince people of the reasons for my not wanting an iPod based on some socially or technologically relevant grounds. These days I’m up front about it: Continue reading »
John Lennon would have been 70 this week. As you may have heard, the entire solo Lennon catalog is being reissued, remastered, reboxed, rebought. There will be countless reassessments of the man’s solo career, with references to long outdated terms like primal scream therapy and lost weekend. These reassessments will likely include seemingly outrageous defenses for generally considered turds, like Some Time in New York City and Rock ‘n Roll. There are bonus discs involved in these reissues, including demos from the Plastic Ono Band debut and a stripped-down Double Fantasy (“But not stripped down enough, not stripped of Yoko’s songs!” I hear some of you cackling). Best yet, if my reading retention was on, you can buy these CDs, including the bonus discs, individually rather than being tied to shelling out for the 11-CD box set, as is too often the case in these massive reissues.
As Lennon’s solo career is reconsidered, some of us in the Halls of Rock may find ourselves rolling our eyes and snorting over the original Lennon Pass. However, it’s hard to argue that Lennon is not a deservedly a beloved and missed figure. Who can blame any of us for having interest in re-examining a solo catalog that was mostly disappointing in its time? To spark this week’s inevitable reassessment of John Lennon’s solo career, let’s hear your gut answers to the following Lennon-oriented Dugout Chatter questions…after the jump!Continue reading »
