Rock Town Hall • Rock Music Discussion

Listen Here

Posted by mikeydread

Apr 092020

Does anybody have a half-decent music podcast they can share?

My own diet, and it’s far from a rich one, includes the David Hepworth-hosted A Word in Your Ear podcast. It’s an irregular recording, usually with an author or musician, and is done in London. Chatty, informative and rarely outstays its welcome.

I’ve dropped in for a few sessions at Strong Songs, where the host pulls apart a well known tune to see what makes it tick. As I can’t read music, some of the more technical aspects of musical structure sail over my head.

What’s on your podcast download?

I’ve got time on my hands right now for a few good ones.

Disappointing

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Apr 092020

Our old friend mikeydread got in touch to pass along this piece on a disappointing album. I think this is a nicely balanced expression of disappointment, not the kind of thing we’d hear from smack-talking E. Pluribus Gergely.

You’ve all had enough time to reflect on Nashville Skyline, and I really don’t think Bob Dylan is a Townsperson, so you won’t need to worry about missing out on advance copies of his next Bootleg Series: On a scale of Bad to Meh to Great, how do you rate this album?

You can’t re-start RTH without this!

Posted by andyr

Apr 092020

Cutting-Room Floor Classics

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Apr 072020

Recent mentions of magical finds of Bob Dylan and Beatles outtakes via vinyl’s bootleg golden age and legitimate releases of previously unreleased outtakes that became a staple in the all-but-dead CD age got me wondering what your Top 3 cutting-room floor classics might be.

As a kid, I never had enough money to justify the low ROI from buying bootlegs, so I got out of that game early. My close personal friend Townsman Andyr sunk more money into Beatles bootlegs than I was willing to sink, and whenever I’d check them out, I was amazed at how little worthwhile material they left on the cutting-room floor. Those cats were efficient!

Producer Hal Willner Dies

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Apr 072020

Remember when we used to have a little morbid fun over rock ‘n roll deaths with celebrations featuring the “He was a great…man” tag and clip from Alex Cox’s Straight to Hell? Those were the days.

Now, a COVID-19 tag has come into existence. I don’t like this tag. It’s not funny at all. Today, producer Hal Willner, who I first knew of as a musical director for Saturday Night Live and then the brains behind a series of underground star-studded tribute albums in the early 1980s, died from coronovirus. He was 64, right about the age for someone to feel more fondly over a Delaney & Bonnie trifle than anyone from another generation might feel. Terrible.

The Streets of Rock ‘n Roll

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Apr 072020

In a comment on another thread this week, Townsman al said he had some shots he took from an AC/DC Lane in Melbourne, Australia. These are too good to embed in the comments from a post that hasn’t caught fire. I’m posting them on the Main Stage, instead, and asking you to share your experiences walking any of the Streets of Rock ‘n Roll (or related 20th century and beyond music genres).

Rock ‘n Roll Cabbage Patch Kids

Posted by Mr. Moderator

Apr 062020

Remember Cabbage Patch Kids, those creepy (or so I thought, in my early 30s, or whenever those things were popular) stuffed dolls that were all the rage for a couple of years? I thought about them this weekend, while listening to The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn, a favorite syndicated radio show hosted by the longtime music-scene friend and all-around great guy whose moods make up the flow of each episode.

This week, Ben did a second edition of his highly appreciated “Comfort Zone” theme from a few weeks back. It was as enjoyable and comfortable an episode as Ben is known to deliver regularly, pushed along gently by his dry wit. The appearance of the Beach Boys‘ “Sail on Sailor” was no surprise. His love for later period Beach Boys far exceeds my own. I won’t get into a whole Please Explain discuss on that song right now, but feel free to explain, as a side topic, why that song is any more loved by hipsters than Pablo Cruise‘s “Love Will Find a Way.”

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