Rick Derringer Says, “Put Me in the Foyer of Fame!”

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Feb 242009
 


With the Second Annual RTH Foyer of Fame’s Partial Lifetime Achievement Award and Chili Cookoff on the horizon (stay tuned for the announcement of a mid-March date!), The Back Office recently received an interesting letter from semi-legendary ’70s rocker Rick Derringer. It turns out music business friends of Rick had been asking him when he was going to get consideration for our partial lifetime achievement award. Rick was unaware of the Foyer of Fame, but after a few minutes of investigation and consultation with an old friend and Foyer inductee, he came to the conclusion that this was an honor suited for his diverse talents and oddly influential career. Following the jump, we share Mr. Derringer’s letter. Although the Foyer cannot promise any last-minute adjustments to this journeyman-packed event, we will take his plea into consideration.
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In Through the Out Door

 Posted by
Feb 242009
 

Ever come in through the out door of a favorite artist’s career?

I am sure we have all had this experience. You discover an artist whose music you come to treasure. You plunder their back catalogue for all the gems and eagerly await all the great albums to come. Only they don’t come.

I would love to say I followed XTC from Drums and Wires, but the truth is the first time I listened to a full XTC album was Nonesuch. I later went on to discover all the excellent stuff they had done, but, sadly, I had checked In Through the Out Door of XTC’s career.

Have you had a similar experience?

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Cool Pass

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Feb 242009
 


Which rocker gets a Cool Pass from you? For all you can tell this rocker made little significant contribution to his or her band other than a major injection of cool. For this reason alone you, highly discriminating Townsperson, has given this rocker a Cool Pass. For me it’s Brian Jones, and it’s not all about his hair.

History tells us that Jones was integral in the Stones coming together and developing their R&B-based sound, but watch an early clip of the band, before he was completely wasted, and tell me his animal magnetism doesn’t create rock’s first Isoceles Triangle of Cool with Jagger and Richards, no matter how what subtle or exotic touch he was adding to a song. What other band’s third banana always threatened to steal the audience’s attention the way a young Brian Jones did? Maybe Eno, if he was considered a third banana after Ferry and Manzanera? Brian Jones, you have earned a Cool Pass from me. You’ve each got one Cool Pass to hand out, if you deem it necessary.

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You Be the Judge: Newly Surfaced Beatles Outtake?

 Posted by
Feb 232009
 


A friend just passed this along to me. I’m giving it my first listen as I prepare this post. I see there’s already discussion on the YouTube page about the veracity of this clip, supposedly a newly surfaced, 11-minute outtake of “Revolution #1.” Regardless, I’m sharing this as a healing measure with Townsman db. We’ve had a rough day, but we’ll be better rock nerds for it, I’m sure.

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Battle Royale: Which Rock Band Could Beat Up All Challengers in a Street Fight?

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Feb 222009
 


The People (or at least Townsman Alexmagic) have demanded this Battle Royale: Which rock band/artist could beat up all challengers in a street fight? You may simply state the artist’s name, if you think that will be convincing enough, or you could be more persuasive, possibly describing the killer moves and powers each band member might provide in the heat of battle. All in good fun, of course.

Watch it, Delaney & Bonnie are packing a Clapton!

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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…
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