CONTEST! I Dare You to Listen to This Concert From Wolfgang’s Vault: The Kiki Dee Band Live at Robertson Gym (Santa Barbara, CA), 1974

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Oct 052008
 


The last time we ran one of these Wolfgang’s Vault-related contests, no one won, which given the rules of the game makes me think that no one may have even bothered to enter!

While that original contest is still open for anyone brave enough to listen to and report back to the Halls of Rock on a 1984 Billy Idol show, I thought you might be game for a more perverse show: The Kiki Dee Band live at Robertson Gym, in Santa Barbara, CA, in 1974! Here’s an excerpt of the concert description:

It was during the American tour promoting the release of her I’ve Got The Music In Me album that this recording was made. Opening for Steely Dan at Robertson Gym on the campus of UCSB in Santa Barbara, this set captures the Kiki Dee Band in their prime. Dee had assembled a remarkable band for this tour which featured Toby “Bias” Boshell, a veteran of the British folk-rock band Trees as her musical director on keyboards. The group also featured ex-Joan Armatrading guitarist Jo Partridge, veteran Liverpool drummer Pete Clarke, bassist Mike Wedgewood, and B.J. Cole, one of the greatest and most widely respected British session musicians on pedal steel guitar.

Who even knew Kiki Dee had her own Band? I know I’m not British and aware of a fraction of that nation’s minor pop stars, but I never considered that Kiki Dee existed beyond singing with Elton John on the charming “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. Am I forgetting an appearance on AbFab or a single with Pet Shop Boys?*

The rules are simple: Be the first Townsperson to listen to this archived concert and report your impressions back to the list. The winner will receive a choice between the Gap Mangione album of his or her choice or the patented RTH No-Prize!

I dare you, Rock Town Hall!

*What do you know–I just checked the clip that kicks off this post, and I totally forgot about the title track from the album she was touring behind in 1974!

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Who’s Growing a Playoff Beard?

 Posted by
Oct 052008
 

Good thing I don’t get my flu shot until this Wednesday, because Phillies Fever is running strong and I’ve got a bad case of it. Does your playoff team have a theme song that matches the boogie-oogie-oogie of my 1976 Phils?

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Mach Schau!

 Posted by
Oct 052008
 

Newcomers to the hallowed Hall may sometimes become a bit disoriented by the frequent, peculiar insider-ism in the RTH vocabulary. Thankfully, there’s a handy Glossary to keep you nodding your head in understanding, if not necessarily agreement.

One term you’ll see thrown around here is “mach schau.” Fans of the Beatles will remember that German rock and rollers would frequently shout this admonition to “make show!” at the boys during their marathon, pill-and-booze fueled performances at the Star Club in Hamburg, to get them to work harder to entertain the audience. Lord knows the Germans have been wrong about a lot of things over the years, but that was one thing they got right. They knew that a weedy young band of precocious — if nascently talented — upstarts needed a swift kick in the ass to realize they still needed to *work* for their supper.

Around these parts, “mach schau” is sometimes used as a noun: “I’ll tell you one thing — Van Halen has a hell of a lot more ‘mach schau” now that Diamond Dave is back”; sometimes an adjective: “I like Stereolab just fine — I just wish they were a little more, you know, ‘mach schau.'” But the principle is the same as it was at the Star Club in 1962: Make show!

Anyhow, this late addition to the RTH glossary is really just an excuse to publish an extremely compelling vuh-deo by an artist who does a stellar job illustrating just what the heck we mean by this term. I used to love this song when it came pouring out of the jukebox at the embassy pool, and, 35 years later, I like it even more, now that I’ve seen it delivered with a *shitload* of “mach schau.”

Enjoy!

HVB

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Rock Video Holy Grails: John Cale

 Posted by
Oct 042008
 


While preparing for our upcoming intervention with Townsman Hrrundivbakshi I stumbled on a personal Rock Video Holy Grail: live performances by mid-70s John Cale of a couple of my favorite songs from Fear, the title track and “Buffalo Ballet”. (The titles the foreign production crew gave the songs are pretty funny.) Cale’s hair is long and greasy, friend of Rock Town Hall Chris Spedding is decked out in black leather and is about as thin as a B string, the sound and performances are shakey, in a satisfyingly human way… In past efforts to find cool videos of Cale I’ve found plenty of stuff from his bloated early ’80s period and plenty of stuff from his more subdued Elder Statesman period of the last 15 years. I’ve seen all the crappy footage of the Velvet Underground that’s floating about. Until now I’ve never seen live clips of Cale from around the time of this relatively fertile period.

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Gotta Have Heart: Mr. Mod Identifies What’s Lacking in All Energetic Artists That One Might Expect Him to Love Yet He Only “Admires” On an Intellectual Level

 Posted by
Oct 022008
 


I think I’ve determined a running theme among artists I like and admire on an intellectual level yet will never love: they’ve got no heart. I’m thinking specifically about Chuck Berry and The Ramones, but there are other toe-tapping, energetic rock artists I like and admire for their tunefulness and craftsmanship yet remain unmoved by on an emotional level. Another example might be Cheap Trick, although they have at least two songs that express identifiable human desires. Actually, The Ramones have a couple of songs expressing some identifiable human desires, but overall they’re a worthy example.

For purposes of exploring this discovery, let’s focus on Berry and The Ramones. Both artists are to be admired for their energy, their craft, their wit, their tunefulness, and the other guiding principles that kept them from entering a likely embarrassing “blooz” or “psych” phase. There’s more insight and understanding of the human condition in their songs than might be evident on the surface, but rarely do I find their music stimulating my understanding of human emotions.

The issue I have with these artists is a little different from Fogerty Syndrome, in which the artist has a chip on his or her shoulder for reasons known only to his- or herself. In the case of artists suffering from Fogerty Syndrome, the emotions resulting from the unidentified chip come through to the listener and offer emotional enlightenment and release for listeners. I don’t get that from Berry’s music or much of the music of The Ramones (“Sheena Is a Punk Rocker”, “Rockaway Beach”, and maybe two other songs excepted), and I’m not sure that you do either. That’s cool, right? There are plenty of other things to like about these emotionally “distant” artists, but I’ve put my finger on it: that’s what keeps me from fully embracing their music.

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Comment of the Month: September Winner Drops Unexpectedly

 Posted by
Oct 012008
 

Today marks the awarding of our second monthly Comment of the Month honors. It’s funny how the best and brightest comments emerge from our discussions each month. There were plenty of worthy candidates in the “stretch drive” over the last week of September, in particular, but our winner culminated from an off-topic discussion that took place within a completely unrelated main thread.

Somehow, while reflecting on the death of Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright, we got to talking about the Main Stage rotating banner image featuring the olde-fashioned cotton undies of a young Linda Rondstadt. cdm brought it up, but it wasn’t until this clarification that we could zone in on the specific image he had in mind.

The tension mounted in what was clearly a fierce play for mid-month consideration for these honors. Then a Townsperson stepped forward with what we’re honoring today as the winning comment!
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