Rock Town Hall • Rock Music Discussion

Boo, Mr. Koobas Drummer Guy! You Suck!

Oct 102012

Click here to see just how awful Mr. Koobas Drummer Guy was

Really, Mr. Koobas Drummer Guy? Really? You couldn’t bring yourself to at least pretend that you were rocking out with as much joyous abandon as your bandmates? You couldn’t take advantage of the fact that you didn’t actually have to play anything? You could have pretended to twirl your sticks, or play the drums with your feet, or at least bite your rockin’ lower lip every once in a while. Look at your band mates, Mr. Koobas Drummer Guy. Check out the bassist, throwing down some serious dance steps and — for Christ’s sake, he’s acting out the freaking lyrics back there! The weird blonde guitar player has got a shit-eating grin plastered across his face, and has — holy shit, what was that?! Did he just stop playing in order to bust a major Carnaby Street fop/dandy move? Singer dude has the serious rock lip biting ‘tude down cold, keeping the band from flying out of conceptual control. But you, Koobas Drummer Guy — you’re terrible. Where’s your energy? Do you even care about the song you’re pretending to play? Sheezus, you’re awful. Just hang it up, Mr. Koobas Drummer Guy. You suck. You’re ruining it for everybody. Booooo!

Rock ‘n Roll Holy Grails: Prime-Time Pere Ubu Video Found on YouTube!

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Oct 102012

NEWS FLASH!!! An actual Allen Ravenstine-Scott Krauss-Tony Maimone–era Pere Ubu video other than “Birdies” from Urgh! A Music War has been found on YouTube! Enjoy this performance of “On the Surface” from my favorite October day album, Dub Housing, before the fog lifts. I believe David Thomas is highly protective of the band’s appearances on YouTube.

As a special bonus, this performance is from the band’s 1988 reunion tour, featuring second drummer Chris Cutler. In my frequent searches for video evidence of the many great shows I’ve witnessed by this band beginning with this particular tour, I have had trouble finding anything involving these key members other than the excellent performance of “Birdies,” with a boyishly trimmer-than-usual Thomas looking like a plump Liev Schrieber. Usually, all I find is stuff from their appearances on David Letterman and David Sandborn‘s Night Music, a couple of years later, when they tried cleaning up their sound and core members began moving on. That stuff’s not as exhilarating, although shows I saw during those years were strong.

UPDATED: HERE’S ANOTHER PERFORMANCE FROM THAT TOUR!

Rock ‘n Roll’s Extinct Bands

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Oct 102012

EXTINCT!

Townsman RaoulG asked:

Who are the extinct rock ‘n roll bands? The ones that can’t even trot out one original member? Even the “Ramones” could go out with a drummer, correct?

Our old friend The Great 48 asked a similar question on his Facebook page a couple of weeks ago. The only major band he could think of that was extinct was The Jimi Hendrix Experience. I don’t recall his Facebook friends coming up with anything else. Someone even tried to shoot down that one case of rock ‘n roll extinction by citing the possibility that Billy Cox was briefly a member of what had still been called the Experience. Come on.

So, who are rock ‘n roll’s extinct bands?

This Is Your Rock Town Hall

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Oct 092012

This is your Rock Town Hall!

If you’ve already got Back Office privileges and can initiate threads, by all means use your privileges! If you’d like to acquire such privileges, let us know. If you’ve got a comment that needs to be made, what are you waiting for? If you’re just dropping in and find yourself feeling the need to scat, don’t hesitate to register and post your thoughts. The world of intelligent rock discussion benefits from your participation. If nothing else, your own Mr. Moderator gets a day off from himself. It’s a good thing for you as well as me!

Lou Reed…As His Music Was Meant to Sound!

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Oct 092012

Some of you might say the wonders of this performance are self-explanatory. Some of you wiseacres might say he should take his own advice. Lou would say you and all those gabby fans are missing the point. This is Lou Reed, after all…as his music was meant to sound!

World, You Blew It!

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Oct 082012

If you ask me, the world “blew it” in generally ignoring The Undertones. Actually, I’m not sure I can condemn the UK, which has seen fit to produce 2 documentaries on this little band that could, but my fellow countrymen can bite me for leaving proper appreciation for this band to what seems like a few dozen scattered Americans of my generation and the slightly younger Townsman Berlyant, who once bravely saw fit to defend the band’s lone demi-turd of an album, The Sin of Pride, at our first (and as-yet only) live Rock Town Hall symposium. Among the slightly younger generation of folks who should know better, not even Townsman Oats digs The Undertones. For shame! More power to Berlyant for his brave stance! More power to The Undertones!

Please note: the clips I’ve included are not necessarily what I consider the band’s “best” songs or available live video performances. In fact, they’re from the period that even most Undertones fans consider the end of the line, from 1980’s overlooked gem Positive Touch (their most important contribution to humanity, in my opinion) to the aforementioned swan song by the original line-up. (They’ve since re-formed with an adequate replacement lead singer for the proud Feargal Sharkey, allowing folks like myself to celebrate and pay homage to the band’s past glories.) What these clips do show and what I have valued so much since stumbling across their unbelievably energetic and creative first album is a combination of rock ‘n roll smarts, energy, and idiosyncrasy that was unmatched among a generation of bands understandably influenced by the The Ramones and Nuggets records. With no “ace” musicians, nothing more distinctive than a unique singer and an endless supply of peppy riffs, they always relied on each other as a band. There was never a song that was clearly the tertiary songwriter’s bone or an excuse for the lead guitarist to wank off. The Undertones made my music, the way me and my friends could imagine ourselves making music. I am disappointed in you, world, for not seeing things my way.

The point of this thread, however, is not to focus on The Undertones but to share what other ways the world blew it. What artist that failed to capture a larger audience and better sprinkle their magic pixie dust through the land makes you shake your head and feel the world blew a once-in-a-generation opportunity?

Last Man Standing: Non-Hollywood Musical Movies Based on a Song

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Oct 072012

I’m tempted, as I’ve been tempted too many times before, to think that I’ve come up with the shortest Last Man Standing contest ever, but you’ve proven us wrong too many times before. I’m so confident you’ll surpass my expectations that I’ll give away the one movie that recently came to mind for me that fits what I will hold according to strict criteria: non-Hollywood musical movies based on a song.

By “non-Hollywood musical movies based on a song,” I mean movies that were written outside the Hollywood musical tradition (whether actually made in Hollywood or not [ie, French musicals also don’t count]) specifically to play out the story of/capitalize on a pop song. Movies that simply use the title of a pop song (eg, High Fidelity) do not qualify. In fact, I think we long ago did a Last Man Standing on that topic. The movie has to be some (I would think in most if not all cases) misguided idea that the content of the pop song was not enough, that the pop song’s content had to be fleshed out as a feature film. Imagine, if you dare, an actual film portraying the events and evoking the moods of Don McLean‘s “American Pie” (the teen-exploitation film series of that title being a good example of movies that will NOT quality for this LMS). The screenplay, in other words, needs to be based on the song.

As I said, I am so confident that you will come up with dozens of instances of this practice, a practice I’d forgotten ever happened even once until spending a solid 45 minutes with the following 1978 gem, that I will kick things off with our first entry…after the jump!

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