Greetings, fellow seekers of the rare, the unusual, and the putatively worthless. On this Father’s Day, I come before you in humble tribute to the father of RTH, our very own Mr. Moderator, whose singular accomplishment in the field of Rock community I shall celebrate through a choice slab of dusty vinyl.
Specifically, today I share a track that will hopefully nurse him through his legendary fear of dancing in public spaces. The Flares recorded a song for just this problem in 1961 entitled “Foot Stompin’, Part 1.” Though it climbed to number 25 in the charts that year, I heard it for the first time when combing through a haul of 45s I found at a local flea market. It’s infectious, foot stompin’ good fun, and it makes dancing easy!
So here’s to you, Moddie — long may you stomp.
https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/01-Foot-Stomping-Part-1.mp3
HVB
Great tune! There’s a good garage version by a Minneapolis band called the Underbeats too.
Yeah, this is a great song. Isn’t this the song Bowie did on Dinah Shore or something like that in the mid-’70s?
Thanks for thinking of me and my discomfort with dancing (and not only in public). After today’s double-header baseball game I said to my older son, “This is the most fun thing I’ve done in years!”
“More fun than music?” he asked.
“Yes, music is something that’s creative and means a lot to me. I take tremendous pride and enjoyment in doing it with my friends, but I’m always striving for something better, always chasing something. Playing baseball at this age, with the knowledge that I attained when I was your age [16] – that there are many people who are objectively more skilled than I am – gives me a feeling of pure joy. I don’t get that feeling from many, if any, other activities.”
As I told him this it occurred to me that this may be the way people feel who actually like dancing. I hope so.
I love dancing, just plain ol’ “social dancing” and the more rigorous classes/self-improvement. I’d say the “pure joy” happens most when I’m moving around to favorite music or during a really good dance class. But I’m not one of those people who loves to perform, so dance performances rarely give me that sense of “pure joy” that you mention.
Maybe it’s the same with musicians – are there those of you out there that don’t enjoy performing as much as listening to music?
I’ve been spinning this here MOJO compilation CD – ‘Sticky Soul Fingers’ tribute pretty regularily since copping it off eBay last week – retro soul covers of the Stones zippery release. I like it a lot.
I think that the Motown/Stax/Philly/ChiSound groove has to be the least hated music of all time…
I like playing in a band but I like recording much more. And I hate dancing.
I love performing when enough key factors are in place (ie, feeling of brotherhood among musicians on stage, a rumbling stage sound, engaged audience, etc) but my main motivation for playing music is the act of making and recording it. I’ve had many memorable, meaningful, and fun moments working up new songs. As I stated once before here, a longtime goal of mine is to “perform” the learning of a new song. I want to get on stage with my bandmates, in front of an audience, with the band facing each other as we do in our studio, and simply go through the steps of making some sense of a new song. A film crew would cover this process for posterity. Through the magic of CGI the director could fly in a more compelling band over our green-screened figures.
Nice! The best of 2 worlds! I did a SNSI episode recently with many of these Daptone artists on it.
Thanks HVB for mentioning that Bob & Ray bio in the Summer Reading thread. I picked it up @ my local B&N & I’m reading it now. It’s pretty good.
Speaking of B&N, I usually go there & have a frappuccino & read either old music or old car magazines. I was reading one of the latter, Mopar Muscle, about Chryslers & it had an article about a ’72 Chrysler Town & Country station wagon that was actually owned by John Lennon (actually Apple Records) & used by him & Yoko to go between NYC & their vacation places in PA & LI. According to the article, the current owner started up the car for the 1st time & “Imagine” came on the radio.