It took me a long time to embrace a big chunk of Guided By Voices. Ranking high among a myriad of beefs I had to get over was my beef with their Look. I couldn’t get a handle on their Look, it was as if they didn’t care, and they weren’t blessed with the physical gifts that should allow rock musicians not to care. Last night I came across this video. Watch it and see, through my eyes, a cool version of GBV – complete with a Look – performing live on television!
What a difference a well-lit television set makes for live performances! The more I thought about this the more it became clear that my underlying lack of interest in the old late-night concert show, Midnight Special, ran deeper than the typically bloated ’70s rockers and that one-trick pony Wolfman Jack. Take a look at what I’m getting at.
OK, that wasn’t fair. Try these clips; they perfectly illustrate what I’m getting at. First, a band I briefly thought was great as a teenager, seconds after first hearing this, their greatest contribution to rock ‘n roll. Check it out!Continue reading »
January 20, 2004, a day that will be forever burned in the minds of a handful of listeners of WFMU’s The Best Show on WFMU. It was here (first introduced about 1:12 into the episode and picked after a few choice Big Dipper songs at 1:49) that host Tom Scharpling first summoned the members of the long-disbanded Boston band to see if he could spark a dramatic reunion. If you’ll recall, reunion was in the air, following the stunning and emotional Berlin and A Flock of Seagulls reunions that had recently been shepherded through VH-1. Through his persistence, Scharpling would set off a montage of awkward hugs, slow-motion instrument polishing, drum-head changing, finger-building exercises, and stage clothes shopping excursions that. Nearly 4 years later comes the news that Big Dipper is indeed reuniting for a handful of shows in April 2008 and the release of a 3-CD set. The release will include a 12-page booklet with liner notes by Scharpling and, most importantly, songs from the band’s first 3 long-out-of-print albums along with the requisit rarities, unreleased tracks, and even the original video for “Faith Healer”. I’ve been waiting a long time for this day, and I’ve been waiting a long time to have more than this grainy, 12th-generation clip that’s been floating around YouTube for some time as a visual record of the band.
We will have more news on the CD and the shows as details are finalized. For now, we welcome Gary Waleik, Big Dipper guitarist and go-to guy on the low harmony parts, to the Halls of Rock. In my days of attending Big Dipper shows, Gary was always a great guy to chat with, and he’s no different today. Following this scratchy vinyl-burned track from the band’s Heavens lp, let’s get it on!
RTH: So it’s true that Big Dipper going to reunite for some shows in April 2008! Do you know where you’ll be playing?
GW: Yes. We plan on playing two shows in Boston and two in the New York area starting 4/23/08. They will include shows at Maxwell’s in Hoboken and The Middle East in Cambridge.
RTH: Will it be just a few shows, or are you ditching your well-established adult lives for one more shot at conquering The Road?
GW: My guess is that those 4 shows will probably be all we do. If it goes well, I may pitch for a quick Midwest tour (Chicago, Lawrence, Wichita, Columbus, something like that), but we’re too busy as family men and gainfully employed individuals to risk it all on another full-blown rock and roll fling. Though the sirens do call from time to time… Continue reading »
Townsman, please explain to me why, based on the random samplings I’ve heard of Judas Priest’s music since their late-70s prime, they have always struck me as the best of the second-generation, barely blues-based Heavy Metal bands. Last night I was watching a VH-1 documentary on the making of their breakthrough album, British Steel, I think it’s called. I remembered a lot of those songs, and the album tracks had their merits too, even while I sniggered through the more Spinal Tap elements. This morning, while eating breakfast and catching some pre-work tube, VH-1 broadcast some cheesy response to Billy Idol called “Turbo Lover”. Even that song was better than the second-generation heavy metal (and Hair Metal) competition. You know more about this band than I do. Please explain what I’m feeling. Thanks.
What rock flick do you most wish you’d seen while it was in the theaters?
A simple enough question, no? I never got around to catching Rust Never Sleeps while it was on the big screen. I bought the album upon its release and dig it to this day, but I never made that extra effort to see the film. Likewise, I wanted to see that Neil Young concert film from a couple of years ago, the one with him being an old guy and contemplating death alongside his Harvest bandmates. That sounded real touching, but I never even made the effort to rent it.
The thing is, I don’t know if I care to rent these films. I like watching rock films on the big screen, with the occasional whiff of some dude’s joint wafting up from the back row. How about you? Is there a rock flick you regret missing while it was in theaters? A rock flick that played in theaters long before you’d come of age?
While you’re hard at work on your answer, for those of you who’ve seen Rust Never Sleeps on the big screen, did I miss anything?
You might be thinking this is yet another excuse for Mr. Mod to dig Clapton’s Look, especially in contrast with his ugly bandmates, but I’d really like to learn more – from a drummer’s perspective – about what exactly highly touted drummer Ginger Baker brought to the table. Here’s one of the first songs I ever heard by Cream.
For the 37 or so years I’ve been conscious of (and liked) this song, all I’ve ever thought about when considering the drum part is the monstrous, clodhopper fill that Baker seems to play in an endless loop. Is there a drummer in the house who can explain the degree of difficulty of this one fill? Are you drummers hearing anything else from the drums that impresses you in any way? Is Baker’s part supporting the song in a manner you could help me better understand?
Here’s another well-known Cream track, but this time with Baker leading his own band, Ginger Baker’s Airforce.
With the horns punching out the key beats, does it even matter that Baker sounds like he’s doing nothing more than rolling around the toms while keeping that counter-rhythm pulse? He does open things up a bit during the first horn solo, but then, with the clock counting down to 10:28 and the the chorus part of the music coming back in, Baker reverts to those thunderous paradiddles that seem to be what he lives for. Go to the 5:03-mark, when the band is into its next song, for some more of the intense tom-tom fills that give Baker’s life meaning!
Drummers, when you were young and learning your craft, did you take anything special out of the lessons set by Mr. Baker? Continue reading »
You may recall our very cool interview with Phantom Tollbooth’s Gerard Smith on the making of Beard of Lightning, the highly unusual post-hoc collaboration between a defunct underground band and Guided By Voices mastermind Robert Pollard. At the time, we reached out to some other figures in the making of this album, and now, a few months later, Townsman Kpdexter has uncovered the following tale, as told by Off Records head Chris Slusarenko, buried in his Inbox. A mere months after Chris took the time to provide his take on this fantastic voyage, Rock Town Hall presents this exclusive! Take it away, Chris!
Chris under the guidance of voices
In the mid-80s the late great Homestead Records label (home of Death Of Samantha, Great Plains, Sebadoh) put out one of the greatest 7″s of all time–“Valley of the Gwangi”, by Phantom Tollbooth. Hard to find at the time and with a strange black and white drawing for a cover it blew my mind but probably not many others. The music sounded like three gentlemen fighting musically between each other, jumping from prog to rock to jazz, and then emotionally twisting you back to a hook you didn’t know was there at all. I was in music geek heaven (or in college rock heaven as it used to be called). Two more albums followed as well as an ep after the fact. Then like most bands they broke up.
In the mid-90s I meet Robert Pollard for my first time after a Guided By Voices show. Doug Gillard and Ron House were also backstage and we started talking about Homestead, since they both used to be on that label. I mentioned Phantom Tollbooth and Bob starts singing “Nobody knows what we’re saying” from Phantom Tollbooth’s last album Power Toy. I tell him they are one of my favorite bands and then the night progresses into a mess of us singing bits of their songs back and forth. At one point he mutters, “I wish I had sang for Phantom Tollbooth. We would have ruled the world.”
In the early-00s I put together a compliation that both Phantom Tollbooth guitar player Dave Rick (also of Bongwater) and Bob Pollard performed on. Dave does a song about “Dr. Mom” with Ann Magnuson. Bob and GBV do two suites about the “Strident Wet Nurse”. I’m in heaven. I start self-releasing records on my label, Off Records. I set it up so that it’s only for bands and projects that don’t really exist–or more simply, just albums I want to hear badly. Tollbooth is a comin’. Bob decides that the album should be him writing new lyrics and vocal melodies for Power Toy plus the song “Valley of the Gwangi” from the first 45. The new album title was one that Bob had been kicking around for a while–Beard Of Lightning. Continue reading »
