Lennon & McCartney As Cult Artists

 Posted by
Nov 192010
 

Somehow this post primes me for this weekend’s coming edition of Saturday Night Shut-In. The cache of the rock cult artist is a wonder to behold. When this post was first launched, it was hard for us to imagine Lennon and McCartney as cult artists, but a few you could dream. As I revisit this I think about other artists who might have benefitted from cult status – and artists who once were cult figures who became harder to like after “graduating” from that status.

This post initially appeared 11/17/07.

Hey, where’ve I seen this guy?

I was reading an interview with Robyn Hitchcock that had the following Q&A in it:

Interviewer: Has it ever offended you that you are constantly mentioned as a cult musician?

Robyn Hitchcock: Not at all. I always wanted to be in a cult band but I just didn’t know what that meant. All the people I liked when I started playing music were people like Captain Beefheart, Arthur Lee, Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, and a bunch of others. I have always loved The Beatles and obviously they are the biggest band of all time, but I think if they were not all together, Lennon and McCartney could’ve easily been cult figures themselves. I’m really quite pleased where I am right now.”

I’m fascinated by this thought of John and Paul (and George for that matter) as potential cult artists if there had never been a Beatles.

Might they have only been cult artists? Or would the talent and drive have pushed them beyond cult artist status as individuals? If they were cult artists, what other cult artist might they have been most like?

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What’s the Deal With…Ween?

 Posted by
Nov 182010
 

Walking down 15th St in Center City Philadelphia the other day, I noticed the doorbell of a beat up rowhouse broken into cheap apartments for art students. It listed the occupant as “Boognish” and had this symbol over the keybox:

I’d think most of us could trace this character to the Philly-area jokester band, Ween. I don’t know too much about these guys but it occurred to me this is band with a lot of pretty well-reviewed releases (on Allmusic, at least) that has never been discussed on RTH. My search sees them named-dropped here twice in the last 3 years. They don’t have a Greatest Hits to start with, so my question to all of you: What’s the Deal with Ween?

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Lou Reed… As the Lightning Bolts Coming Out of His Eyes Were Meant to Fry You!

 Posted by
Nov 182010
 

Hey, gang!

What’s the most boring, frustrating video game in the world? Lou Reed knows!

What if someone made a game that required players to drive from Tucson, AZ to Las Vegas, NV in a bus? What if they had to make the 400 mile, 8 hour journey in real time, and what if the bus really, really needed an alignment—so you couldn’t just hold down the accelerator pedal with a piece of tape while you went to sleep?

And what if your reward for all of this arduous, tedious work was exactly one point? What the hell kind of game would that be? And why the hell would anyone play it?

Such a “game” does in fact exist. It’s a sub-chapter of a never-released video game designed by magicians Penn & Teller, which also (in a different, “impossible-level” chapter, seen above) features Lou Reed in full 1980s Jheri Curl glory.

A group of incredibly generous masochists at LoadingReadyRun have decided to donate many, many miserable hours of their time to playing this game—but only if sadistic “sponsors” step up and pay them to do it. Last year, the group raised more than $140,000 for Child’s Play, a groovy charity that helps kids have as much fun as possible when they’re stuck in the hospital.

The more (tax-deductible!) donations viewers make to Child’s Play through DesertBus.org, the longer LoadingReadyRun must drive the desert bus.

I’m posting this because it’s a cool cause that a company I consult for is sponsoring—and because you might want to head out to http://www.desertbus.org to offer up a few dollars in support of a worthy cause.

Just remember: Difficult is wining the Nobel Prize. Impossible is eating the sun.

Thank you for your time.

HVB

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Once and For All: What Is the Best Rolling Stones Single from 1984 (and While You’re At It, Why Don’t You Come Clean With Your Rock-Themed Weird Haircut Experience)?

 Posted by
Nov 172010
 

In a recent comment Townsman alexmagic, always one of the Hall’s finest conceptualists/commentators if not the Main Stage trailblazer we all know he could be (we’ll chalk it up to humility), hinted at his desire to discuss a Once and For All topic that developed from a “weird haircut experience,” in which, as he puts it:

…someone was playing a Stones collection that only had late-period songs on it…

The Once and For All topic is this: Reissues, remixes and live songs excluded, what is the best Rolling Stones single from 1984 on? It is crucial that we settle this issue, which has been implied on numerous rock discussion blogs through the years but not once tackled head on!

The broader, possibly more telling topic that needs to be discussed, however, is that of the rock-themed weird haircut experience. I’m sure I’m not the only one curious to know the details of The Magic Man’s rock-themed weird haircut experience, and because I’ve had two of my own rock-themed weird haircut experiences I know alexmagic is not alone in having such an experience. It’s likely you’ve had one too. These experiences usually aren’t discussed in polite circles, so FUCK YOU – let’s drop all pretense of being polite and come clean. I’m sure we’ll find the trading of our experiences extremely healing. Then we can go back to watching what we say at the dinner table.

I’ll start: Continue reading »

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Last Man Standing: Band Members Who Just Missed the Boat

 Posted by
Nov 162010
 

In honor of Pete Best and Ian Stewart, original members of The Beatles and Rolling Stones, respectively, who were kicked out of the band (or band proper, in Stu’s case) just as their mates were on the brink of major success, let’s commemorate musicians who were replaced shortly before their soon-to-be legendary bands took flight as we know them.

A few exclusions (of course):

  • Band members who died and/or went kee-RAAAY-zee right before their bands broke are disqualified (sorry, original brains behind The Gin Blossoms, whatever your name was). The musician had to have been capable of regretting his or her shot at the big time, and as far as we know the (brain)dead do not retain regrets.
  • Band members who actually made it to the band’s first, less-than-legendary album before the band broke with a bigger album do not count (sorry, Fairport Convention’s original woman singer, Judy Dyble), although the musician is eligible if he or she only appeared on an early single.
  • Original XTC keyboardist Barry Andrews is not eligible because XTC never really broke to any degree that would have caused Mr. Andrews to sit home and nurse his missed opportunity. Same goes for whatever guy or gal just missed the boat on your own band, if said band did not scale enviable heights.
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Not Lame Saying Goodbye

 Posted by
Nov 162010
 

We just received word that Not Lame Recordings, the indie power pop label and distributor led by true believer and all-around good egg Bruce Brodeen is closing shop on November 24, 2010. However, Bruce and his partner in crime, Jon Bard, are not leaving the music scene they love so dearly. A couple of months ago they launched the middle-age music lovers’ social network Rock and Roll Tribe, and now they’re putting together another power pop network called Pop Geek Heaven. A personal message from Bruce can be found here.

As someone whose small-potatoes releases were supported by Not Lame over the years, even when they were frequently outside their key demographic, I say Thanks and Best of luck in your new ventures! Bruce and his crew were always responsive, responsible, and supportive. Rock on!

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