Mar 202012
 

You know the drill, right? Please provide your gut answers to the following questions. There ain’t no right answer. There ain’t no wrong answer. There’s just YOUR answer—and the answers of your fellow Townspeople.

What song or album have you most recently reconsidered, be it positively or negatively?

What’s your favorite song of your least-favorite genre? For instance, Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me Baby” is probably my favorite ’80s synth-pop song from a genre I couldn’t avoid in its time that I never liked.

Second to Converse Chuck Taylor model sneakers, what are the next-most rocking sneaks?

Do you have an “All-or-Nothing Artist,” that is, an artist whose songs you either love or do not enjoy at all? (For instance, if you’re used to my tastes, The Byrds would be my answer. They have maybe 10 songs I like a lot, but after that they typically don’t have songs I like even a little bit.)

What artist whose music you have little to no interest in do you nevertheless most enjoy as an interview subject?

Conversely, what artist whose music you love do you nevertheless steer clear of as an interview subject?

I look forward to your responses.

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Mar 192012
 

Listening to some X today and got to thinking how much I love Under the Big Black Sun, but yet how sad it is. Songs like “Come Back to Me,” “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes,” and “Riding With Mary” all speak the pain of Exene’s tragic loss. I get a similar feeling with Neil Young‘s Tonight’s the Night album for a similar reason—death hangs all over that album.

Now I’d have to say the saddest album (IMO) is Big Star‘s Sister Lovers. Maybe it’s the “death of a band,” but the whole about-to-collapse-at-any-moment vibe of that album always seems to really bum me out, no matter how much I love it. And I think “Holocaust” maybe one of the saddest songs ever put on vinyl.

Not that I’m in a dark mood here—what with the amazing weather and all—but any contenders for Saddest Album in Rock? Break out those hankies.

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Mar 192012
 

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.

With less than 3 months to go, I am getting very excited about the prospect of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest!

The behind-the-scenes activity is already hotting up, with 75-year-old Engelbert Humperdinck lined up to represent Great Britain. He must be gutted that his place as the oldest person to perform in the Contest will immediately be usurped by 76-year-old Natalya Pugacheva from the Buranovo Grannies, whose husband is apparently very cross that she is going away to represent her country and he will need to find someone else to milk their cattle during the competition.

Go Grannies!

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Mar 182012
 

As we enter the final hours of voting in Rock Town Hall’s tournament to determine—once and for all—rock’s greatest backing band I bring you the videos Mr. Moderator doesn’t want you to see!

An anonymous source reports that he has been contacted by Mr. Moderator regarding his publishing company’s broad “web-scrubbing” abilities. “The Moderator wanted to know,” said the anonymous source, “how my company manages to claim copyrights on videos in which I have little to no involvement and get them pulled from the web.” The source continues, “I didn’t put 2 and 2 together until you called, but it was weird when he asked, ‘How would you, for instance, go about scrubbing a James Brown video from YouTube?’ He’s a weird fucker—and I’m not referring to James Brown.”

Here’s one of the videos Mr. Mod allegedly attempted to have removed from YouTube:

Following the jump is a video he pursued for removal even more vigorously.

Continue reading »

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Mar 172012
 

Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!

In this week’s edition of Saturday Night Shut-In Mr. Moderator reviews some of the underrated strengths of The Attractions and The JBs, our finalists in our long-running tournament to determine—once and for all—rock’s greatest backing band. He also spins some new purchases and wonders what it is that he likes when he likes jazz. Enjoy.

[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-71.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 71]

[Note: You can add Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your iTunes by clicking here. The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player.]

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Mar 162012
 

This one goes to zero!

Rock Town Hall has a long and honored tradition of rock video analysis, with Townspeople often incorporating the distinctive technique of commenting on videos with the sound off. In honor of alexmagic‘s recent analysis of a video of Tom Jones performing with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, we are instituting a new feature, Sound Off!

The way a Sound Off! thread works is simple:

  • A video is posted for us to view with the sound off.
  • We comment on what we’re seeing with the sound off.
  • We most likely share in the sense of wonder that there’s much to learn about music with the sound off.

You will be entrusted to view the following video with the sound off. If we could disable the video’s sound we would, but something tells me the copyright holder of the video might object to that. Trust us, for the purposes of this thread the sound will get in the way. Beside, you may be viewing this at work, in which case coworkers will only be distbured by your giggles; you won’t have to worry about the artist’s music leaking into their cube.

After the jump, why don’t you turn the sound off and watch the following video!

Continue reading »

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