Beatles Debris

 Posted by
Mar 012010
 


I’ve never seen Paul McCartney’s vanity film Give My Regards to Broad Street, not a lick of it if you don’t count any segments that were broadcast on MTV in the day as his video single. From the little I’ve seen on YouTube this morning and the little I’ve read about it – hell, from nothing more than still photographs from the shoot – I’m thankful for not having seen it. Although the video clip that kicks off this thread is of a surprisingly half-decent song (and features friend of Rock Town Hall Chris Spedding front and center), I suspect this film would be included in the Great Beatles Refuse Removal Truck that’s coming to your town.

Simple question: What Beatles-related debris would you chuck once and for all?

Specific songs you don’t like, be it “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” or “She’s a Woman,” will not be accepted. Nor will blanket tosses, such as the entire solo career of your least-favorite solo Beatle. This psychedelic dumptruck is looking to collect the offshoot stuff, the vanity projects and collectibles, that are truly not necessary and that will possibly threaten the band’s legacy – and your own rock nerd reputation – through this millenium. For instance, George’s limited-edition autobiography, I Me Mine, may be another example of Beatles debris that’s ready to be tossed, but I wouldn’t know, because I wasn’t one of the suckers lucky 2000 to pay some exorbitant price for this tome.

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Nothing More to Give

 Posted by
Oct 192009
 


Decades after Beatles fanatics spent their hard-earned cash buying bootleg albums in search of the Great Lost Beatles Track, the band finally allowed for the release of that three-volume Anthology series. The series confirmed that, with the exception of a few well-known alternate takes, The Beatles had nothing more to give. There was not a treasure-trove of cool, unreleased original tracks.

Fans of The Kinks and The Who have been treated to some cool rarities and demos over the years. Some believe Bruce Springsteen‘s unreleased tracks are as good as his released ones.

The Rolling Stones never faced this question. Each new album since Black and Blue contains tracks that were revived from some aborted recording session in Jamaica or the Bahamas, circa 1974. A hundred years from now they will still be able to release a new album of material culled from one of those late-night jam sessions. And don’t think they won’t.

With each new reissue of the back catalogs of Elvis Costello and David Bowie, new previously unreleased tracks emerge, most of which are of better-than-current-day-release quality of either artist. The other night, however, I was thinking about one major band with excellent studio chops that seems to have nothing more to give: Continue reading »

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Moon Rock!

 Posted by
Jul 202009
 


What’s the best rock song about travel to the moon or other points in space? As Rock Town Hall marks the 40th anniversary of humankind’s first landing on the moon, I can’t help but think back to the night, as a 6-year-old boy, my family gathered around a little B&W tv at the apartment we were renting in Ocean City, New Jersey. I went to bed late that night, sleeping in the top bunk of the kids’ bedroom. I awoke on the floor the next morning, presumably having rolled out of bed, dropping 5 feet, and probably getting knocked unconscious before I had a chance to awake from my fall. The other thing I’ve been thinking about is David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” That song always painted such a clear picture of space travel when I was a kid, and it still does today.

What’s your favorite Moon Rock song?

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“White Stripes will = T.Rex”

 Posted by
Feb 222009
 


In response to my speculation that The White Stripes will be remembered along critical and popular lines similar to the ways in which T.Rex* is remembered today, Townsman dbuskirk wrote:

Remind me again how being remembered as well as T.Rex is a bad thing? I can’t recall meeting too many rock fans who didn’t have a special place in their heart for them. Devendra Banhart stole half of his act from the acoustic Tyrannosaurus Rex LPs and coincidentally just recently I met a very smart and hip twenty-year old who was all about her T.Rex t-shirt. From DJing weddings, I know that “Bang A Gong” is pretty much a guaranteed cross-generational dance floor filler.

To clarify, I didn’t say it was a “bad” thing, but it’s not uncommon for Townspeople to interpret any insightful, piercing analysis on a favorite artist’s legacy that is anything less than unconditionally loving as somehow negative and insulting. Let’s work through this misunderstanding and reserve compliments for my off-the-cuff analysis from earlier this morning for possibly another thread. Here goes…
Continue reading »

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Win-Win Collaborations?

 Posted by
Feb 122009
 

Rock collaborations between major artists can result in fantastic outcomes. I’m not talking about rock’s legendary one-shot duets, such as Ja-Bo or “Ebony and Ivory,” but full-blown collaborations or instances in which one established artist produces a slightly less-established artist. I would think that fans of one artist or another may feel that their favorite in the collaboration either lifted his or her collaborator by the bootstraps or, if the favorite artist was the perceived submissive partner in the collaboration, been held down or otherwise tainted by the more-popular partner. Following are just some collaborations. You tell me which artist benefitted most from the collaboration, which artist suffered, or if the collaboration was a rare case of a win-win partnership. In other words: Who wins? Who loses? Feel free to focus your thoughts on any one of these pairs. Feel free to call in a new pair for discussion. I expect we will have some initial disagreement.

  • David Bowie and Iggy Pop
  • Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
  • Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra
  • Eric Clapton and Duane Allman
  • Robert Fripp and Brian Eno
  • David Bowie and Brian Eno
  • Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers
  • Buckingham-Nicks and Fleetwood Mac
  • Daryl Hall and Robert Fripp
  • Lou Reed and David Bowie
  • Brian Eno and Talking Heads
  • Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds
  • Jefferson Airplane and Papa John Creach
  • Bob Dylan and The Band
  • U2 and Brian Eno/Daniel Lanois
  • Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne
  • David Bowie and Mott the Hoople
  • Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart
  • Brian Eno and Coldplay

I look forward to your responses.

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