Take this, losers!
Monochromatic satin sweat suits. Adidas Superstars. Shades. Once again, Marty Balin poses the question, What planet am I from?
Feb 012013
Mr. Moderator
Jan 302013
How did it take me until 8:34 EST to realize January 30th is the 44th anniversary of the Beatles’ rooftop concert? Can we make this an official RTH rock-oliday? How would we celebrate it? Jam on a rooftop? Wear a woman’s fur coat?
Jan 302013
Busy day, but let’s keep the chatter going with something free and easy. Please answer the following 3 questions as accurately as possible:
- What are you listening to right now, as you read this post?
- If you’re not listening to anything at the moment, what song do you last recall hearing?
- If you could break away from whatever it is you’re doing and pull one record from your stack/playlist/hard drive that fits your current mood, what would it be?
I look forward to your answers.
Jan 282013
This weekend 2 Rock Town Hall Facebook page subscribers posted important content that I’ll share here, for non-Facebook users, as the start of an All-Star Jam. This is a welcome use of our Facebook page. If you’d like to stay in touch through those means, by all means Like it, here.
First up is a call from Townsman Tvox for a Rock Town Hall Inquisition of Lenny Kravitz. Before reading the caption on this Moment of Douchebag post, I assumed it was rockdouche Dave Navarro. Were Townsmen Andyr and I alone in thinking Kravitz might turn out to be cool way back when, when he released his first album?
Next up is a link from Townsman cherguevara, to a little piece about a 92-minute collection of every recorded moment of the Grateful Dead tuning up through their 1977 tour. The Slate writer probably had us in mind in his conclusion:
Perhaps someone will do an academic study of these odd, interstitial moments, to add to the growing body of Grateful Dead scholarship.
Thanks for passing along these nuggets! Townspeople are encouraged to jam on their own rock chatter here and on our Facebook page.
Jan 262013
Next week’s NFL Super Bowl game features a showdown between teams coached by brothers, John and Jim Harbaugh. This historic championship game between teams coached by brothers is probably a first in all professional sports—and likely the last in our lifetimes we’ll see a pair of brothers square off as coaches in the biggest game at the highest level of their sport. Super Bowl XLVII has been dubbed the “Harbowl.”
This got me thinking: Is there a rock ‘n roll equivalent of the Harbaugh brothers: two siblings who have risen to the top of their profession in separate bands/solo careers?
Siblings who established themselves in the same band do not count, so don’t give me Dave Davies‘ technically solo hit “Death of a Clown” in comparison with the Ray-led Kinks as a showdown of Harbaugh v Harbaugh implications. Thinks of what Mom and Dad Harbaugh must be going through. Do you think the Davies boys’ parents ever chewed their fingernails over the creative dominance of one brother to the other?
Siblings who are the result of “Whoops, I didn’t think we needed birth control at our age!” followed by a “Sorry kid, it’s too late to join your older siblings’ well-established group” father/band manager-talk don’t count. Sorry Andy Gibb, Janet Jackson, and Marie Osmond. This must be a head-to-head match-up of siblings’ musical achievements without one siblings’ aid of supporting siblings. So for whatever reason some Nevilles are part of the “Brothers” and some aren’t (and some of them may be cousins or offspring themselves, possibly answering a question on another recent thread), all Nevilles are off the board. It’s got to be a Harbaugh v Harbaugh dynamic.
Rock ‘n roll is littered with “also-ran” siblings, like Mike McGear (né McCartney) and Chris Jagger. Even a relatively accomplished sibling like Dee Dee Warwick, sister of Dionne, at the height of her chart success didn’t match up as a “top dog” alongside her sister in the music world. Ron and Art Wood, for instance, do not pose a Harbaugh v Harbaugh dynamic.
Kid brother Neil Finn would leave his older and relatively accomplished brother Tim in the dust, but both brothers led bands with hit songs. Although the brothers had brief stints in each others’ bands we won’t hold that against them for purposes of this discussion. The other set of siblings that comes to mind and that may hold the initial lead in determining the Harbowl of Rock, are the following:
Jan 242013
Does any 30-year stretch of rock ‘n roll sound as similar to a non-rock ‘n roll lover from my grandparents’ generation’s ears as 30-plus years of rap sound to mine?
Honestly, I don’t want this thread to sound like the rumblings of an old white man, but I need perspective.
I own a few rap/hip-hop albums: a Sugarhill Gang Best of, a couple of albums each by Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys… I like them. Whenever I try moving beyond that small circle of artists (and trust me: I own some other rap/hip-hop albums and have had friends burn me collections of various artists in an effort to broaden my mind) it quickly sounds the same: people talk-singing in one of a couple of standard meters about a) how cool they are, b) how tough they are, c) how pissed they are that someone dissed them, or d) all of the above. Oh, and some of the more adventurous artists mix in “Eastern” beats and name-drop stuff that indicates a degree of nerdiness, turning on the likes of Quentin Tarantino: kung-fu movies, obscuro soul artists from the ’70s, ABA basketball legends…
I know this is a horrible generalization, but let’s hold a mirror up to my weakness, if not your own. Does any 30-year stretch of rock ‘n roll sound as similar to a non-rock ‘n roll lover’s ears as 30-plus years of rap sound to mine? Reggae? Rockabilly? Metal?
How do those of us in the know differentiate within one of these given genres? What would we tell me, for instance, to look for in terms of differentiation among rap/hip-hop artists?
Jan 232013
Townsman machinery ran a similar thread not too long ago on strange sounds on records. Bachman Turner Overdrive’s awesome lunkhead anthem “Taking Care of Business” came on the radio this morning and I couldn’t help but dig it. At the 47-second mark, when they sing “And if you take your time you can get to work by 9…” some low, fluttering sound enters the mix. Real simple question: What’s that sound?
While that song is fresh in mind, is there a better lunkhead anthem than “Taking Care of Business”? To be fair, it’s probably not fair to characterize the song as being targeted at lunkheads, which the Urban Dictionary so sensitively defines as, “A very inoffensive, PG way of calling somebody a fucking retard.” But the spirit of the song goes deeper than “down to earth.” I don’t know about you, but when I hear “Taking Care of Business” I get in touch with my inner lunkhead. That can be a good thing.
If we were to construct a 12-song compilation album entitled Lunkhead Anthems, what other 11 songs would best serve the need we all have, now and then, to get in touch with our inner lunkhead?
