It’s your moment of Yes. In the spirit of keeping it nice, let’s take a few moments to appreciate rock’s most affirmative band.
Following is an early ’70s promotional video I’d never seen before. People who don’t know or care much about Yes, like myself, tend to think that the high-energy image the band put forth as they fell under the direction of the Trevors, Horn and Rabin, was contrived. Maybe even longtime Yes fans felt that period reeked of SELL OUT. I don’t know. The following video, however, is almost New Wave in its lighting, framing, and musical miming. Heck, they always had it in them. Enjoy…after the jump!
This is my inaugural essay post under this auspice, and an extension of what I was trying to do with a blog I was running for 2 years. (R.I.P. “What Do We Have For Entertainment?”)
My wish, is to come crashing into RTH’s bedroom, shouting “You have to listen to this!”
I’d like to introduce drummer Jonathan Kane by way of 3 interwoven genres that appear in his music. I’ve laid out some notes on paper, in which drone, the blues, and New York No Wave funnel into each other, kinda like an upside down delta, in fact.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/02-I-Looked-At-The-Sun.mp3|titles=Jonathan Kane: I Looked At The Sun]
Which is appropriate, since Kane’s music (and I prefer to think of him as a bandleader, rather than the mere and often derogatory the drummer. Same way I think of Charles Mingus) draws so much from the delta blues perpetual motion boogie of John Lee Hooker, and the minimal chord structures and hypnotic vamp of Mississippi Fred McDowell. The latter’s blues, from the north hill country of his name-state, is marked particularly for sticking to the I chord rather than making the change to the IV or the V. Sometimes this blues will stick to dwelling on the IV chord. The harmonic shift gives a suspended sound, a minimalist drone.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/1-09-Wandering-Blues.mp3|titles=John Lee Hooker: Wandering Blues]
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/15-I-Looked-At-the-Sun.mp3|titles=Mississippi Fred McDowell: I Looked At the Sun]
Perhaps the blues could be considered a minimalist form. Regional, rustic, but with close ties to the minimalist compositions of the downtown New York scene of the ’60s: La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich (see also: John Cale). The constant harmonies, steady drone, lock-groove, and gradual transformation are not a million miles away from the boogie of ZZ Top’s La Grange.Continue reading »
After a brief hiatus of Saturday Night Shut-In your Moderator considers what members of that Henry Cow scene may be thinking while they have their morning breakfast. Chew on that thought as you ease back into your Saturday night routine.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-80.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 80]
Many of you know me as RTH’s Minister of Fun and Games — and I do take a small degree of pride in being the primary inventor of most of the shallowest, most trivial time-wasting activities on offer here. But the reason I continue to hang around in the Hall of Rock is because much smarter people than me really put some honest effort into posts that provoke thoughtful, chin-scratching discussion of things that ought to concern us all. I frequently feel bad about my basic laziness in this area.
In an effort to make up for my seriousness deficit — while still preserving my laziness point total — I’m sharing something a Facebook friend posted on their wall today. It concerns his trip last night to see the Dandy Warhols, and it’s as well-written as it is thought-provoking.
I don’t know how old the author, Giles Kotcher, is — but I believe he is in his late 50s or 60s. (This, as you’ll see, is relevant information.) In any case, I invite you to read and comment:
(I was) treated to the Warhol Dandies & 2 younger bands last night & faced my age & the 5 or 6+ decades passed since “rock” originated. The sounds hit me like debris sucked off Japan by the tsunami and floated across the Pacific to crash on Western shores. Time is the ocean & the music dislodged wreckage. “They’re like The Velvet Underground.” No, they’re not. The audience —- including several in their 40’s, 50’s & 60’s [ I was likely the oldest person in the room —- in the world ?] —-had heard the songs before on cd & could rehearse mentally what the numbing volume of live performance made unintelligible. Jerking zombies hungry & starving on imitated, wanna-be charisma, schtick poses & licks.
This scene in miniscule epitomizes what we see & hear everywhere in a very “late” stage of culture: the Age of Sequels. Sequels of movies, Postmodern architecture, alt country, Mad Men, Mid-Century Modern decor: tweaked recreations, simulacra empty of all else but style. We live AFTER a century in which an avant garde of creative artists, pioneers in science & clairvoyant inventors of redefined liberty, equality & justice enjoyed a historical privilege to discover the New.
I’m often embarrassed here to post so many “old” “nostalgic” bits of the cultural past. I do not want to live in a “period piece” version of the 20th C, but the contrast I see and hear between the present and the 20th C Modernism I was educated to admire— or stumbled onto dancing through youth— deafens me on the edges of the Warhol Dandies. Huge goals remain in the fight to find practical comfort in liberty, equality and justice, but—- no longer so floated by the new—-we continue the fight in a largely exhausted American culture, surviving mainly as commodity.
I feel like I’ve been on a reign of spreading bad vibes this week. I get that way sometimes. Sorry folks. As a remedy, I thought I’d share this video for “Happy Song,” by Baby’s Gang, featuring the legendary Boney M. As you enjoy this happy song and turn your thoughts away from issues of mediocrity and downright suck. I thought you’d find even more enjoyment through a Last Man Standing challenge seeking rock songs featuring a chorus of kids.
These songs must feature actual kids, not Yoko Ono, for instance, singing in a child-like voice on The Beatles’ “Bungalow Bill.” Also, despite how childish the songs might sound, they cannot actually be kiddie songs for a kiddie audience. Entries must be serious rock songs by serious rock artists, like Boney M. and his friends in Baby’s Gang, for serious rock fans. More or less.
Chances are other ground rules will develop in mid-competition, but as always, please limit yourself to one entry per comment. Don’t bogart this thread!
In a recent thread I actually found myself defending Dave Matthews Band, within the context of the topic at hand, for “sucking in an original way.” Townsman cherguevarra picked up on this and wondered:
Who are rock’s greatest innovators when it comes to originality in sucking, since often one major component of sucking is being too derivative of other artists?
Isn’t it time we identify and pay homage to rock’s greatest innovators in sucking?
Townsman Sethro passed along the following topic for discussion:
Are there any brother acts in rock history who actually got along? The Bee Gees seemed to get along better than most, but most of the time you hear about The Everly Brothers, Oasis, The Kinks, etc and their constant fighting.
Happy sister acts or mixed brother-sister acts are also welcome for discussion.
