My boys know I despise ketchup; in fact, more than my dislike of its taste I’m aesthetically opposed to it. Every year on my birthday they get their revenge on me for all the times I’ve told them stuff like, “Come on, you haven’t tried sauteed spinach since you were 3; you might like it now!” So every year on my birthday they see that I eat a couple of french fries dipped in ketchup. Yuck!
Bob Dylan turns 70 today. Bob’s never been one to look back, but who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Who says he might not succeed where he fell short the first time around? If you could convince Dylan to try something he rejected long ago—Come on, Bob, it’s been 30 years since you last tried it!—what would it be?
Townsman hrrundivbakshi proposed a Last Man Standing thread on songs about what it means to be a Rock Star. I thought we’d already done a meta-rock LMS, which may have had a lot of overlap, but my man HVB was specific:
I want songs that are about becoming a rock star — the follies, the foibles, the Life Lessons learned. Cautionary tales. Aren’t they all cautionary? Can anybody think of an upbeat “Johnny became a rock star” song?
I answer my own question with Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”
You are welcome to treat this thread as a standard Last Man Standing, in which—one entry per comment—you aim to be king of the hill, top of the heap among rock nerds exhausting the last answer possible to suit the LMS criteria, but better yet, I ask you to pull on your analytical skills so that we might provide future generations with a summary of the collected Life Lessons of what it means to be a rock star. As you submit your answer, see if you can’t point out a key message or two from the song you have entered. Our work can then be compiled and provided to career counselors.
This week’s All-Star Jam counts on you to provide stimulating discussion, nerdy rock news flashes, and other trivialities that only people like us may care about. Such as the following tip, delivered to The Back Office by Townsman tonyola:
Here’s an odd and somewhat sad story…
“NEW YORK — Joseph Brooks, the Academy Award-winning songwriter of “You Light Up My Life” who was awaiting trial for rape, was found dead Sunday of an apparent suicide in his Manhattan apartment, police said.”
Or perhaps you just want to remind your fellow Townspeople about an opportunity to help a fellow Townsman for as little as $1 AND test your Classic Rock Psychic Powers.
How many of the following album cover ‘dos can you identify? Full credit will be given for naming the person and album, but we’ll give partial credit where due! This quiz is divided across 2 sections.
In this week’s early edition of Saturday Night Shut-In Mr. Moderator takes to the virtual airwaves to testify, I guess you could say. It’s a long shot, but if what they’re saying comes true and the world begins crumbling around us, we may not have much time to enjoy this week’s episode. So strap in for a longer-than-usual journey, in which your host unloads with some loving and possibly final thoughts that he wants to make sure get out there while there’s time.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-29.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 29]
[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.]
A few month ago, when this show was announced, I had my doubts. That night my wife, interrupted yet another of my dinnertime rants and said, “Maybe he’ll play more of his old songs if he’s going to use the spinning wheel.” We considered going to see Elvis Costello on his Revolver Tour after all, even bringing our boys. It might be the last, decent Costello show the world will ever see, we concluded, ominously, envisioning a similar future scenario a friend experienced a few years ago, when he took his son to see a battered Bob Dylan, the Shell of His Dylan, making no effort to engage his audience, playing barely recognizable versions of any songs people wanted to hear and a bunch of stuff off his last half dozen “comeback” albums, that is, albums that have had the good sense not to tone it down and not stomp out the remaining sparks that fly off an artist who once shone as bright as the sun.
Three songs into Thursday night’s Elvis Costello & The Imposters’ show at Philadelphia’s Tower Theater, with a setlist dictated, in large part, by the the Spinning Songbook I realized the joy and sense of satisfaction that I was feeling would carry me through whatever post-Nick Lowe–produced lowpoints the wheel might dictate. After storming out of the gates with a 4- or 5-song pub rock reaffirming segue that included “Hope You’re Happy Now,” Lowe’s “Heart of the City,” and “Radio Radio” he called his first audience member up to spin…”Human Hands”! The wheel was especially giving to fans of Get Happy!! and Imperial Bedroom, culminating in a 4-song “Time” set of “Clowntime Is Over” (slower, B-side version), “Strict Time” (!!!), “Man Out of Time,” and The Rolling Stones‘ “Out of Time.” The majestic “Man Out of Time” is a song that has ever-increasing personal relevance as the high heel that was a young me is ground down. Hearing it helped me put a lot of my emotion-packed day’s events in perspective. At this point in the set I knew that the initial burst of joy would not be exhausted.
Coming home last night with the fam from dinner, The Hollies‘ “The Air That I Breathe” came on. My wife commented that when she was younger she always thought it was Bowie. To which I replied that I always thought “Long Cool Woman in a White Dress” was CCR. Which got me thinking, how could this band make both of these songs which are 1) stylistically night and day and 2) both kinda rip-offs, if you ask me.
