Rock Town Hall’s Saturday Night Shut-In: An Audiophile’s Worst Nightmare

 Posted by
Sep 172011
 

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

In this week’s edition of Saturday Night Shut-In Mr. Moderator is likely to bum out our audiophiles. That’s right, he’s dipping into his vinyl collection, featuring mostly beat-to-hell 45s. You may hear scratches that threaten to wear out your hard drive, but the grooves run deeper. Issues of “cool” are explored, and your host announces his possible starting song (rather than pitcher) for a possible elimination game.

[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-45.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 45]

[Note: The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player. In fact, you can even set your iTunes to search for an automatic download of each week’s podcast.]

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Ragged Canadian Chorus (aka Ragged Hippie Chorus)

 Posted by
Sep 162011
 

Neil Young‘s “Cripple Creek Ferry” popped up on my iPod the other day. What a great, little snapshot of a song. What’s that film-making device called, when the camera pulls back and you just know the ending credits are about to roll? I love songs that serve that role, be it at the end of either side of an album (see The Undertones‘ “Casbah Rock” as another fine example of what might be a future Glossary entry).

Anyhow, as I listened to “Cripple Creek Ferry” for the first time in probably 6 months I was reminded of yet another unfulfilled rock ‘n roll dream: to record a song with what I’ll call a Ragged Canadian Chorus. Two of my main musical colleagues over the years, andyr and E. Pluribus Gergely, cringe at this approach to backing vocals. Beside the fact that they’ve shot me down whenever I’ve suggested this approach and that we don’t have the chops to pull off such deceptively casual backing vocals, we’re not Canadian.

In my mind I initially termed the loose, dragging, community-style chorus of “Cripple Creek Ferry” the Ragged Hippie Chorus, but then it occurred to me that the next two examples I had of this style were by Canadian artists: Joni Mitchell‘s “Circle Game” and almost any song on my second-favorite album of all time, The Band’s s/t sophomore triumph. It must be a Canadian thing, because when American bands try this it either sounds like shit (eg, The Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead) or is a little too smooth (anything involving JD Souther with a hand cupped over his ear). When English bands try this they sound like a bunch of paunchy guys at their local pub’s Celtic night (eg, Fairport Convention). Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The Canadians do it just right. I love how it sounds like a group of friends is hanging around in a booze-and-smoke–filled cabin, when the lead singer decides to play everyone his or her new song and then the friends casually feel motivated to sit up and join in on the chorus. I imagine lots of curly hair and denim, tightly fitting plaid shirts with 3 buttons undone, a thumb hitched in one singer’s front jeans pocket and another singer’s four fingers shoved down a tight back pocket. Fresh sensations of recent bed-hopping within the circle of friends hang in the air along with the pot smoke. The ritual cult-like effect of the Ragged Canadian Chorus is both soothing and slightly unnerving.

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What Becomes a Singer-Songwriter Most?

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Sep 162011
 

Here’s a very early post from our opening months as a blog concerning a topic that still mystifies me a bit. Let’s see if we can’t reopen this pozzling case 4 1/2 years later.

This post initially appeared 2/23/07.


Too often discussions of the ’70s singer-songwriter era are clouded or impeded by your Moderator’s bias against the music and many of its key artists. This weekend, I’d like to set aside my biases, and I hope those of you who share in these biases do likewise.

What qualities did middling ’60s artists, such as James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Cat Stevens, Jackson Browne, and Warren Zevon (not to mention previously faceless songwriters like Carole King and Neil Diamond), possess that allowed them to blossom as solo artists in the ’70s? What talents were the times of the swinging ’60s keeping at bay? Beside Paul Simon and the CSNY connection, few successful artists from folk-rock’s budding days in the mid-60s crossed over to ’70s singer-songwriter stardom.

Were there also artists who had achieved some degree of success in the ’60s who might have been better served by struggling a few more years and appearing as solo artists in 1969? I’m not sure if I’ve thought of any obvious answers to that question, but let me throw out some people I know some of you like in their underrecognized solo careers: Gene Clark and Dennis Wilson. Similarly, would Donovan have had a deeper, more credible career had he come to life in the age of the singer-songwriter?

Finally, did Dylan ever “crossover” to the singer-songwriter age with Blood on the Tracks and Desire, or was he always Dylan? He never stripped down and got intimate again during the ’70s, as he might have done to tremendous reception, did he?

I look forward to your input, especially because this is an area beyond my wheelhouse.

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1-2 Punch!

 Posted by
Sep 152011
 

Let’s try another 1-2 Punch, shall we? Top 10 lists are too much; Top 5 lists invite too many opportunities for throwing in a hipster, obscuro choice to distinguish oneself from the raging masses. What I’d like to know is what TWO (2) songs you would choose from an artist’s catalog to say as much about that artist that you believe represents said artist’s core as possible? In other words, if you could only use TWO (2) songs from an artist’s catalog to explain all that said artist is about to a Venusian, what TWO (2) songs would you pick to represent said artist’s place in rock ‘n roll?

I’ll pose two artists and you—love ’em or leave ’em—give me each artist’s representative 1-2 Punch. Dig? Here goes!

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Don’t, Don’t, Don’t, Don’t, Don’t Believe The Hype

 Posted by
Sep 152011
 

I’ve been listening to the new Glen Campbell album, Ghost On the Canvas. It’s a very good, if a little uneven, album, but then I’m someone who thinks Glen Campbell could sing just about anything and I’ll find something of interest in it.

The title cut is written by Paul Westerberg and is better than anything I’ve heard from him in years, but that could be Campbell’s singing and not the song. There are other tracks by Jakob Dylan (the standout track to me) and Teddy Thompson (another great track) and Robert Pollard. It could do with the elimination of 3 or 4 cuts, but I like it just fine.

I bring it up though because of the marketing campaign behind it: “Glen Campbell went public in June with the news that he has Alzheimer’s disease, and he’s marking the twilight of his life with a surprisingly ambitious project. The country singer’s final, revealing album.” Oh, and a final tour.

Now, on the one hand, what else could or should he do? He knows his recording/performing days are numbered. He wants to make a final album (statement?). I suppose he could just record the album and tour, not reveal the Alzheimer’s, and leave like Joe DiMaggio but something more seems required. So why does this still seem somewhat distasteful to me?

Of course, when it comes to distasteful marketing campaigns for albums, nobody comes close to Melissa Etheridge:

  • “Oooh, I’m a lesbian and this album is the first one I’ve felt like I could really be me on.”
  • “Oooh, I’m married to the ex-wife of some actor and this album celebrates our love and life together.”
  • “Oooh, my spouse and I have two children and, guess what, David Crosby is the genetic father; learn all about it in the songs from my new album.”
  • “Oooh, that ex-wife of some actor left me; feel the pain on my new album.”

Poor Melissa, although, none of these campaigns seem to have done much for her career…

Any other marketing campaigns you recall unfondly?

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What Rockers Have the Most Presidential Hair?

 Posted by
Sep 142011
 

That's cheating, man!

These days politics pretty much disgust and depress me. Growing up I wanted to be Mayor of Philadelphia. No joke. I read books about my hometown mayor, Frank Rizzo; Chicago’s Richard Daley; and those corrupt big city mayors from earlier in the 20th century. I wanted to learn from their successes and mistakes. I wanted to wield power for the good of The People, shape civic pride, throw out the first pitch on Opening Day… I wanted to shake hands with strangers and kiss babies… I wanted to call out Public Enemies for my political gain now and then. Most of my priorities were in the right place. At some point in the mid-’80s, the dream ended along with so many other idealistic notions from my youth. The ’80s were a dream assassin, man.

As politics revealed itself as a world too cynical for even me, Ronald Reagan did usher in one fascinating trend: Presidential Hair. Harkening back to the idealistic coif of JFK, Reagan’s ‘do set the tone for future political campaigns. The humble strands of hair remaining on a candidate like Paul Tsongas would forever be at a disadvantage. The team of scientists and architects behind Joe Biden‘s hairline would be only Vice Presidential in reach. Presidential Hair does not ensure a seat in the Oval Office, but since the triumph of Reagan, each election sets a new crop of hair-hoppers across American campaign trails.

If we ever get around to conducting Townsman alexmagic‘s long-promised election of an international President of Rock, we should prepare for the role that Presidential Hair might play in the race. Simply put: What rockers have the most Presidential Hair? How do we define Presidential Hair as it applies to our future President of Rock? Is Elvis the JFK of Rock Presidential Hair? A particular era in Beatles hair styling?

Chances are the book has yet to be written, but it won’t hurt us to see if we can’t take a peak at the outline.

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