Bedroom Albums

 Posted by
Oct 292008
 

I’ll leave it to you to define albums you associate with whatever goes on in the privacy of your bedroom – just as I’ll leave it to you whether you want to share those experiences while listening to your favorite bedroom albums. Whether your associations are as pure and innocent as those of the long-locked boy sitting by his bedroom window, tracing the dripping of a lone raindrop with his fingertip or something not so pure and innocent, what I do request of you is an accounting of your favorite bedroom albums. Take it from there, should you choose, you forlorn dreamers!

Share

2008 World Series Rate-a-Record (Suspended Play Edition): A Rock Town Hall Apology, or Revisiting Daryl Hall’s Rendition of the National Anthem

 Posted by
Oct 292008
 


Recently a well-known Townsperson posted a poll question that invited fellow Townspeople to poke fun at Daryl Hall, of the popular vocal duo Hall & Oates, for failing to show for his scheduled singing of the National Anthem before Game 5 of the 2008 World Series. His old singing partner, John Oates, filled in admirably, and some of us thought we were having some fun.

It was then brought to our attention that Mr. Hall was feeling “under the weather” owing to a flare up of his Lyme disease – no laughing matter – and that otherwise he would never have missed this great honor in front of his hometown fans on baseball’s largest stage. It was then brought to my attention that this would have been Hall’s second singing of the National Anthem before a Phillies’ home World Series game. Hall sang before one of the 1993 games, which I sadly missed while living abroad.

As our way of kicking off the final innings of the suspended Game 5 and apologizing to Daryl Hall, John Oates, Oates’ moustache, and the first two (and only) unadorned notes sung by Pattie LaBelle in her rendition the night before, Rock Town Hall remembers Daryl Hall’s 1993 redition of our National Anthem[.em…em…].

As our way of keeping it real, who better delivered the anthem, Hall or Oates?

Share

Anarchy At Christie’s Auction House

 Posted by
Oct 282008
 

Memorabilia from some of punk rock’s biggest acts and seminal moments — including a scrawled flier for one of the Clash’s first shows and publicity photos signed by the Sex Pistols — is headed for a Nov. 24 Christie’s auction.

Full story here.

Items include an unwashed rag used by Johnny Thunders to wipe gob off his face between sets and a tissue used by Dee Dee Ramone to clean the man goo out of his nostrils after taking a facial from a businessman at lunch in a bus depot to pay for glue.

What would you pay top dollar for?

Share

Bud, This One’s for You

 Posted by
Oct 282008
 


I know I’m overstepping my bounds a bit as Moderator of this esteemed rock music discussion blog, but I’m pretty steamed about the handling of last night’s suspended World Series Game 5. If I didn’t have a burning desire to see if my team could win the Championship at home I’d write it off as yet another black mark on Commissioner Bud Selig’s reign of error. If I wasn’t finally getting sick of eating a cheesesteak or a hoagie on the day of every Phillies postseason, a ritual that seemed like a good excuse to load up on two of my favorite Philly dishes for a couple of weeks, I believe I’d be merely anxious to see what promises to be the sort of unusual finish that sometimes makes baseball more than what any fan might imagine.

Mother Nature must take her share of the blame, yet who am I to question her ways. The game needed to be suspended, and please be clear: I’m way past my brief homer reaction of thinking that the game should have been suspended a half inning earlier, when the Phils were leading 2-1. I’ve actually managed to think that the situation when the game was suspended will be an advantage to my team’s chances when play resumes.

I do think it should have been suspended sooner, but even that’s not my beef. What has me steamed boils down to the following:

  • A strong perception that Selig and his crew had no clear plan in place in advance for how to handle what might have been coming
  • The fact that Major League Baseball did not publicize its plan, whether it had one in advance or developed one on the fly
  • The fact that it took Major League Baseball until 1:17 EST on a brutal day in Philadelphia to announce that resumption of play would not be tonight but, weather permitting, Wednesday night at 8:37 pm!

Continue reading »

Share

RTH Labs: Tone Exercise, Part I — Please Backwards Please

 Posted by
Oct 272008
 

Milo T. Frobisher, Senior Research Analyst at RTH Labs, sent along the following, asking for your assistance:

Greetings, Hrrundi —

I wonder if you’d be so kind as to post the attached file on Rock Town Hall at your earliest convenience. It may help address the issue of “instant recollection” that some claim is possible upon hearing a few distinctive notes played on an elctric amplified guiitar. Our goal in assembling the audio sampler I’ve forwarded is to determine whether the notes are what is being recognized by RTH’s over-educated rock nerds, or the “tone” of the guitars in question. I for one have my doubts about the possibility that “tone” on its own is sufficient to generate recollection, but, with the help of RTH’s membership, we shall see.

Here is the file in question.

You’ll note that all the audio samples in this collage are backwards. This should have no effect upon tone, but ought to do a reasonable job masking the musical phrases in question. I assure you all of the tunes in question, when played “forwards,” ought to be quite easily recognized by the basement-dwelling, mac-and-cheese-eating, pock-marked denizens of the Hall. To make matters easier, the RTH Labs have selected only the first second of all the songs being sampled.

If, as I suspect, few of the sampled songs are recognized, please post the second file I’ve attached, which features these same songs, played *forwards*. And please make it clear to those Townsmen with recording facilities enabling them to “flip” these tunes on their own, that doing so would run counter to both the spirit and technical purpose of this exercise.

Thank you once again for your service to the advancement of science in rock and roll, Hrrundi. You are a great asset to these halls, to be sure.

Sincerely,

Milo T. Frobisher
Senior Research Analyst
RTH Labs

Share

Dugout Chatter

 Posted by
Oct 272008
 

Can you think of instances when more-established musicians try to re-cast themselves along the lines of a younger artist? Neil Young pretending to be Devo for an album does not count. I’m thinking more along the lines of the 30-year-old Pub Rock veterans who changed their date of birth and recast themselves, in 1976, as Punks.

Do you believe in Rock Repentance?

If given the chance to create a new ad campaign for a revamped AMC Pacer, what band/song would you use?

Do you own more “bad” Stones or “bad” Dylan albums?

Name something musical from a time you lived through that’s now considered part of a current-day nostalgic perspective on the era that does not ring true to your memory and experiences.

If there is such a thing as Rock Repentance, how might any of the following artists repent for their Rock Sins?

  • Rod Stewart
  • Billy Idol
  • Ted Nugent

I look forward to your responses.

Share
 Older Entries  Newer Entries

Lost Password?

 
twitter facebook youtube