Apr 172007
 


Songwriters within the Halls of Rock, have you ever tried to write a prog-rock song? Seriously, even as a joke. I’m curious to hear about your experiences. One of the things that always fascinates me about prog-rock is the mysterious process that must go into writing a 10-minute opus, with 72 changes in tempo, key, etc. Please share, and please feel free to arrange to send me an example of your recorded composition. Perhaps we can develop your experiences into a little songwriting workshop on the art of prog-rock songwriting. Thanks.

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Apr 172007
 

TONIGHT!

Costello will also delve into his past tonight (April 17) as the inaugural guest in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame educational series about songwriting, “The Craft.” Historian and ex-Del Fuegos member Dr. Warren Zanes will interview Costello in Las Vegas for future broadcast on the Hall’s Web site at a future date.

Good grief! It’s not enough that Elvis Costello is reissuing his back catalog for the 17th time, that the 30th anniversary of the relatively boring My Aim Is True is being feted, that he’s going to be conducting an educational series on songwriting with Dr. Warren Zanes (Doctor, heal thyself!), but to top it all off, Elvis is going to be collaborating with Twyla Tharp. What’s left for the guy, getting into the action on those Andy Partridge/Robert Schneider/Robyn Hithcock telecollaborations? An excursion into world music? Joining Ratdog?

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Apr 172007
 

I would like to propose a BATTLE ROYALE today: Shaded vs Leather-Clad Rockers!


Team Shades
Team Shades includes Ian Hunter, Jeff Lynne, and Graham Parker.


Team Leather
Team Leather includes Elvis, Lemmy, and Leather Tuscadero.

Who else you gonna call? Which side wants the leather-clad, shaded Bono? Enter the squared circle in support of one side or another!

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Apr 152007
 


I just watched Avril Lavigne and band lip-synch their way through her new single on Saturday Night Live. Of course it’s pathetic that I would think get a bee in my bonnet over lip-synching on SNL these days, not to mention it’s pathetic I even have it on in the background, but watching Lavigne lip-synch this song, I got to thinking, in terms of how it would change rock and, perhaps, the world, what period in rock was a greater disappointment

Punk rock?

Prog rock?

Or something else?

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Apr 152007
 

Fellow RTHers:

I urge you to watch the following videos, then report back on your assessment of the number of tracks : quality of music ratio throughout the history of recorded pop music.

Part One

Part Two

I’d appreciate thinking that runs a bit deeper than “well, it really depends on the artist” and so forth. I mean, there are interesting questions to consider here, beyond just “was pop music better before folks had 64 tracks to mess around with?”, such as…
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