I’m not sure how much more can be said on this topic, but the discussion that ensued when it was first posted is still a joy for me to read. Hopefully those of you new to this thread will feel likewise. And maybe you’ll share in my undying hatred for (The) Eagles.
This post initially appeared 4/24/07.
Townsman Mwall has requested that we take the following question to the Main Stage, and now we heed his call.
I’d love to hear the reasoning about “Hotel California” as a “horrible song.” Here in southern California, it’s the absolutely essential song for defining the whole pop culture of the place. I look forward–I mean this really–to hearing what’s horrible about it.
In case you can’t recall how that number goes (after some touching backstage moments)…
Big-hearted, booming Welsh show-stopping singer Tom Jones (not his real name, I just learned, so BigSteve was not joking in our recent Last Man Standing) may go from “0 to 60” in intensity quicker than any other singer in (relatively) modern music. There’s a special approach to his burst of intensity that I feel exemplifies a certain type of male singing. It’s as if he takes a guttural scoop toward any material put in front of him. You can hear it on the opening lines in one of his early hits, “It’s Not Unusual.” Jones comes right at the listener like a firm handshake:
There’s no denying Jones’ aggressive approach to such a swinging song, but what makes him special is his ability to dig in on a tender waltz-time ballad like “Delilah.”
I had occasion to listen to In the Charts: I.R.S. Records 1979-1994 in full the other day and got to thinking about boutique record labels. Labels started by one or two music industry guys who have a vision or a sensibility about music that they present to the public. Miles Copeland (brother of Policeman Stewart) brought together a lot of New Wave acts on I.R.S. with an emphasis on the commercial. They seemed to draw evenly between the L.A. and the English strains of the New Wave. The label had a good set of hits from the Go-Gos to to Fine Young Cannibals plus some great ’80s nostalgia one-shots like “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades.” Beyond the hits, I.R.S. had some seriously credible artists on the roster like the Cramps and the Buzzcocks.
Some other labels I might consider having a vision would be the Cali-scene Elektra/Asylum run by David Geffin (Eagles, Jackson Browne, Zevon) and Seymour Stein’s Sire Records, which was there to document the ’70s NYC Punk scene.
I’m excluding the major labels and vanity labels meant to release one artists’ work. Apple Corp, for instance, kind of straddles the line between what I’m after and a vanity label. Any labels you could look to for a certain sound or style, that served as a guide to the music as well as the medium of distribution?
I’m shocked that we’ve never done a Last Man Standing on the following subject: bands named after novels, including characters in novels. Bands named after works of non-fiction do not qualify. Bands named after plays, a short story, and poetry collections do not qualify. Bands named after works of literary criticism do not qualify. The band name must come from a novel, excluding the name of the author of the novel.
Beside Soft Machine, I’m sure you can think of a few bands who do qualify. Game on!
Recently we received the following offlist message in regard to our long-running investigation into the validity of ZZ Top‘s supposed Worldwide Texas Tour. Although not directly confirmed, this third-hand account, verified by our anonymous reporter, may lend some credence to claims of this suspect tour, which no one seems to have captured by a clear photograph or snippet of film.
Dear Mr. Mod,
While hanging out with our daughters at the playground today with my friend Charlie and I started talking about music, as we usually do, in this case large arena shows. I mentioned that I’d never been to rock show in a venue which seated more than 2500 or so people and he said that was the case for him as well, at least in the last thirty or so years. In his youth however, in Des Moines, he used to go to all the big rock shows at Veterans Auditorium, the largest venue in Des Moines. He listed several bands he saw and then, to my surprise, said, “I never saw ZZ Top, but I remember my friend Jay going and telling me that they brought a longhorn steer out on to the stage, and I was pissed because I thought that would have been cool to see.” I did a double take, and then asked him to repeat what he had said, and he confirmed that in the mid-to-late-1970s, a friend of his said he saw ZZ Top perform with a longhorn steer on stage.
Now I’m not sure where the ZZ Top cattle on stage debate was last left, but as a historian, I find this pretty compelling evidence, considering Charlie hasn’t spoken to the person who told him this story in over thirty years.
If you had to choose an Early 21st Century All-Musician team, composed only of musicians younger than 35 years of age and from bands of the last 12 years, who would fill out your 5-piece roster of drums, bass, two guitars, and keyboards? If you want to throw in a “sixth musician” on any instrument, even a laptop, go for it! But let’s leave singers out of this thread; they still get plenty of attention.
Even among the more contemporary bands I like I rarely feel like the musicians are highlighted. I was listening to some new album recently and thinking that the production kept me at an arm’s length from the music; everything was so focused on the the vocals and the extremely steady beat. If you had to “give the drummer some,” for instance, to which drummer younger than 35 would you turn? I just spent 3 minutes trying to begin to answer my own question, but any cool, modern-day “musician’s musician” who came to mind was already past 35 (eg, Jack White [37], Omar from The Mars Volta [37], Nels Cline [55!]).
Surely a large part of my question is a function of my age and lack of touch with modern music, but I’m also curious to know if people still cherish musicianship (of any favorite style of music) the way my friends and I did growing up. We were just as likely to make fun of Neil Peart, Steve Lukather, and their ilk, but we could have easily produced an alternative list of shit-hot musicians who should have been on the cover of those chops-oriented magazines. I can’t even name mainstream “chops” types younger than 35, can you? (Surely I must be forgetting some obvious contenders.)
Of course this thread begs the question, How many Townspeople are young enough and in touch enough to answer this question? Nevertheless, I think it’s a question worth investigating.
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