Bless you, Townspeople.
Apr 112009
Mr. Moderator
Apr 102009
Apr 102009
If you don’t know how a Dugout Chatter works by now, there are two things you can do: 1) Just answer the following questions – from your gut – or 2) watch how experienced Townspeople answer the following questions from their gut, then clear your mind of all efforts to impress and answer in kind. Here goes!
I read that Neil Young‘s new album, Fork in the Road, was inspired by his alternative-energy car. If this album is not the one, what is the dumbest concept around which a concept album has been constructed?
Friend of the Hall Richard Lloyd has a new album coming out that pays homage to Jimi Hendrix with 10 loving Hendrix covers. I’ll be curious to hear this. Can there be any other Artist B Plays Artist A album with a higher degree of difficulty?
Who’s got the best bleached hair in rock history?
Musicians, what’s a bad or cheesy song that, although you don’t like, you can’t help but play a few bars of at least a few times a year when handling your instrument of choice?
What Beatles song lyric is least convincing coming out of the mouth of its Beatles singer?
When “straight” friends and colleagues ask you what kind of music you like, how do you answer?
I look forward to your candid answers.
Apr 092009
Tell us what’s on your mind. It’s cool. It don’t have to rhyme.
Apr 092009
Townsman Mwall‘s recent cautionary comment about another Townsman’s use of a cliche in his comment reminded of another of our objectives, beyond those of science and healing, on Rock Town Hall: the improvement of rock criticism.
Although we could boast of our daily examples of leadership by example, it may be helpful, every few months, to concentrate a thread on a specific area of rock criticism that is in need of improvement. Today, let’s examine rock-crit cliches and see if there are alternatives to phrases like It’s [artist’s] best album since [last actually great album]…
The rock-crit community thanks us in advance for our efforts.
Apr 092009
In our recent investigation of rock’s most pompous singer, Townsman and major Queen fan 2000 Man directed us to this delusional video clip on The Story of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Already-forgotten bands like The Darkness proclaim the song as “the Holy Grail,” then go on to say that if anyone says they don’t like “Bohemian Rhapsody” they’re lying!
Well, call me a liar. I’ll argue that not only do I not like the song but that the song itself has almost no influence on anything that came after it. You could argue that the joy and flamboyance of Freddie Mercury was inspiring to some future gay (and straight) frontmen. You could argue that the band’s production techniques were influential on ’80s hair metal bands. But I don’t see how you can argue that “Bohemian Rhapsody” was influential on any song that would follow in the history of rock to date.
I could argue that the song completed work started by Paul McCartney and Wings through various cut-and-paste songs, from “Uncle Albert/Uncle Halsey” through “Band on the Run” and “Live and Let Die,” but once Queen so perfectly completed McCartney’s artistically suspect efforts, no band had a chance of following in “Bo Rhap”‘s footsteps. Queen was too good at that shit! Despite the fact that I can’t stand “Bo Rhap,” it’s a masterpiece of execution. But it’s not influential.
Are there other huge rock songs that would be, for whatever reasons, in no way “influential?”
Apr 082009
Without sound recordings, how will future generations surfing the Web have the chance to assess the half dozen years or so when James Blood Ulmer was onto something with his gutbucket take on rural blues, folk, and harmelodic jazz? As long as videos have been posted on the Web I’ve been searching for live, recorded concert performance evidence of the Ulmer music I’ve loved since stumbling on Are You Glad to Be in America through Odyssey and the countless live albums that recycled the guitar-drums-violin approach of that last great studio album. I’ve had no luck finding video evidence of the Blood I knew and loved…until now!
Chances are you won’t get it, but I thought this was somewhat visionary, mind-expanding music when I heard it in my late teens and early 20s. I still find the best of his work during these years to be inspiring and, somehow, representative of deep American values, as corny as that sounds. For this discussion, however, I’m not so much interested in focusing on my personal experiences with Ulmer, but in examining artists we loved who began to believe they were something else and sucked thereafter.
In Ulmer’s case, who’s to say? The man had to pay the bills. As real bluesmen kicked the bucket, he must have seen an opportunity to occupy a Last Man Standing position and earn a few long-overdue paychecks. When you’re James Blood Ulmer, forgotten hope of the early ’80s NY jazz scene and Martin Scorcese wants to feature you in his highly anticipated documentary on da blooz I guess you put down the harmelodics, suck it up, and crank out a pointless cover of “Spoonful.” While you’re at it, get Vernon Reid, another Great Black Rock Hope of your era, to plug in and jam along with you. If you run out of white folks to eat it up in the US, the French are seated at the dinner table, waiting for their serving.
So my example is James Blood Ulmer. He got to thinking he was an honest-to-goodness bluesman, and he’s sucked ever since. It saddens me. Has an artist ever abandoned him- or herself – and sucked thereafter – in your eyes? Do tell.
