Not being a tennis fan it took me a few minutes to figure out who this collection of fit rockers was. Despite the requisite pointy guitars, the ’80s fashions, and the undying love of their Parisian audience they’re actually not bad. Can you imagine another collection of athletes delivering such decent rock ‘n roll?
School’s out for summer, and that can only mean E. Pluribus Gergely is on the loose to give his fellow Townspeople hell for all manner of misguided opinions on rock ‘n roll, movies, and lord knows what else. Sometimes the man just feels the need to tell it like it is. Why make him try to shove his opinions into a barely relevant post? Why not offer him this open thread from which to conduct his educational efforts? I’ll be across the Atlantic Ocean, sadly far away from the man’s wisdom, but I encourage the rest of you to keep an open mind—and heart—to what he’s got to say. Thanks.
We here in the Halls of Rock Town are sometimes taken to task for being overly negative, snarky, hyper-critical, and all too often, just downright rude. As part of our collective efforts to bring a bit of sunshine and light to the world wide web, we occasionally make an extra effort effort to find something good to say about, you know, stuff that is clearly godawful.
It is in that spirit that we embark on yet another effort to bring some positivity to our proceedings. Please spend some quality time with the video above, then — if you can — please find something nice to say about it. You’ll feel a whole lot better, I promise you.
I look forward to your comments. Just remember, if you can’t say anything nice about this video… please don’t say anything at all.
Courtesy of Townsman geo.
Despite certain folks’ reservations regarding the status of Beggars Banquet in the Stones’ canon, none would dispute the archetypal nature of its lead-off track, “Sympathy for the Devil.” After coming across a number of songs with a knowing wink back to the Stone’s original, I’ve been thinking of putting together a mix of nuggets that mine this particular seam of classic rock gold: the descending chord sequence, the mutated Bo-Diddley/Rhumba backbeat, the Jack Daniels fueled “oo-ooos”, or anything else that constitutes an unambiguous reference to the original. I’m certain that in the collective mind of the RTH cognoscenti, we could locate dozens, certainly enough to fill an 80 minute CD. Let’s start with “Way Down Now,” by World Party.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/02-Way-Down-Now.mp3|titles=World Party, “Way Down Now”]Who will be the Last Man Standing?
A car commercial on TV recently perked up my ears for two reasons. First, the sound of the jangling guitar and bass moving beneath it, were suspiciously similar to the outro of “American Girl.” I mean, like rip-off similar, even though it was only a couple of bars of music. And it was not the original recording.
Second, it gave me déjà vu about another car commercial blatantly ripping off Tom Petty some years ago. I can’t find any reference to it, but I sort of recall Petty suing them about it; it seemed to me as if they probably wanted to use his song but he didn’t want to license it, so they just recorded a new sound-alike. I think it was a car cruising along a curvy two lane road among rolling hills of brown grass, to a tune that was a direct rip-off of the opening power chords of Petty’s “You Wreck Me,” not long after its 1994 release. (Ironic theme title for a car, if have that right!) Does anyone recall the details on that one, or am I imagining it?
What other accusations of gross musical theft come to mind? “My Sweet Lord”/”He’s So Fine” is the most famous case (court case, at least) that comes to mind for me. Maybe we should omit rap sampling of rock music because that list would be endless!
Mr. Brand New Cadillac himself, Vince Taylor, who took his second-rate ’50s rocker act from England to France, throws down the gauntlet in this vibrant Scopitone!
His challenger is hometown favorite Johnny Hallyday, France’s answer to early rock ‘n roll, thereby tainting the man’s work with a possibly unfair third-rate status. See if Johnny’s got what it takes to steal a victory in this Mach Schaudown…after the jump!
