And here’s the first video. Alexmagic and Hrrundi, your thoughts, please.
Sep 262012
Jul 072012
Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!
On tonight’s episode of Saturday Night Shut-In Mr. Moderator restores The Velvet Underground’s “Rock ‘n Roll” to its original studio majesty. Studio magic! The hell with how Lou Reed thinks he intended the song to sound. You snooze, you lose, Lou.
Later in the show your host sends warm wishes to some fellow Townspeople and makes a case for a trio of blues legends committing an actual crime.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-83.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 83][Note: You can add Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your iTunes by clicking here. The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player.]
Jun 032012
This is my inaugural essay post under this auspice, and an extension of what I was trying to do with a blog I was running for 2 years. (R.I.P. “What Do We Have For Entertainment?”)
My wish, is to come crashing into RTH’s bedroom, shouting “You have to listen to this!”
I’d like to introduce drummer Jonathan Kane by way of 3 interwoven genres that appear in his music. I’ve laid out some notes on paper, in which drone, the blues, and New York No Wave funnel into each other, kinda like an upside down delta, in fact.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/02-I-Looked-At-The-Sun.mp3|titles=Jonathan Kane: I Looked At The Sun]Which is appropriate, since Kane’s music (and I prefer to think of him as a bandleader, rather than the mere and often derogatory the drummer. Same way I think of Charles Mingus) draws so much from the delta blues perpetual motion boogie of John Lee Hooker, and the minimal chord structures and hypnotic vamp of Mississippi Fred McDowell. The latter’s blues, from the north hill country of his name-state, is marked particularly for sticking to the I chord rather than making the change to the IV or the V. Sometimes this blues will stick to dwelling on the IV chord. The harmonic shift gives a suspended sound, a minimalist drone.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/1-09-Wandering-Blues.mp3|titles=John Lee Hooker: Wandering Blues] [audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/15-I-Looked-At-the-Sun.mp3|titles=Mississippi Fred McDowell: I Looked At the Sun]Perhaps the blues could be considered a minimalist form. Regional, rustic, but with close ties to the minimalist compositions of the downtown New York scene of the ’60s: La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich (see also: John Cale). The constant harmonies, steady drone, lock-groove, and gradual transformation are not a million miles away from the boogie of ZZ Top’s La Grange. Continue reading »
May 112012
I’d forgotten about this little hit song of Dave Edmunds, “Slipping Away.” It’s got a lot in common with one of ELO’s last hit songs, “Don’t Bring Me Down.” That song and this Edmunds production by ELO’s Jeff Lynne set the stage for a decade of constipated production jobs by Lynne for already established tight-ass artists Edmunds, George Harrison, and Tom Petty. I don’t necessarily dislike the records Lynne produced for these artists, man, get these guys some bran muffins!
Mar 292012
Name the owner of these famous rock boobs for extra credit
Somebody pointed me in the direction of this fascinating web page yesterday:
http://www.fleshmap.com/listen/music.html
It purports to show, in graphic detail, what body parts are most often celebrated through song, across a wide range of musical genres. Some of the preferred parts will come as no surprise (I bet you can guess what part is most often name-checked in a typical hip-hop number). But I was quite surprised to find no apparent love for breasts. You know, knockers. Gazongas. Jugs. Jubblies. Etcetera.
That got me thinking about songs that actually refer to boobs… and, other than ZZ Top‘s single-entendre masterpiece “Pearl Necklace” (which never really mentions boobs directly) I came up pretty empty. Can you think of any?
I look forward to your responses.
HVB
Mar 132012
Recently we received the following offlist message in regard to our long-running investigation into the validity of ZZ Top‘s supposed Worldwide Texas Tour. Although not directly confirmed, this third-hand account, verified by our anonymous reporter, may lend some credence to claims of this suspect tour, which no one seems to have captured by a clear photograph or snippet of film.
Dear Mr. Mod,
While hanging out with our daughters at the playground today with my friend Charlie and I started talking about music, as we usually do, in this case large arena shows. I mentioned that I’d never been to rock show in a venue which seated more than 2500 or so people and he said that was the case for him as well, at least in the last thirty or so years. In his youth however, in Des Moines, he used to go to all the big rock shows at Veterans Auditorium, the largest venue in Des Moines. He listed several bands he saw and then, to my surprise, said, “I never saw ZZ Top, but I remember my friend Jay going and telling me that they brought a longhorn steer out on to the stage, and I was pissed because I thought that would have been cool to see.” I did a double take, and then asked him to repeat what he had said, and he confirmed that in the mid-to-late-1970s, a friend of his said he saw ZZ Top perform with a longhorn steer on stage.
Now I’m not sure where the ZZ Top cattle on stage debate was last left, but as a historian, I find this pretty compelling evidence, considering Charlie hasn’t spoken to the person who told him this story in over thirty years.
For what it’s worth,
[name withheld]
Jan 192012
Breaking news, courtesy of Townsman diskojoe (and his friend), who writes:
A friend of mine sent me the following link to an interview of ZZ Top by Andy Kershaw of the BBC in 1987 & there’s something interesting @ the 4:50-5:00 mark when the drummer, the beardless one named Beard was asked why they didn’t tour outside the US:
Perhaps the first RTH post directly on the subject.
