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Jan 142014
Jan 122014
Sounds of the hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!
In tonight’s episode of Saturday Night Shut-In, your Moderator celebrates Rock Town Hall’s seventh year in public blog form and pledges to take this place to the next level (not saying if it’s gonna be up or down) in 2014. To be fair, you may not consider this our seventh year at this URL. Perhaps you don’t abide by the Christian calendar. Perhaps I counted wrong (we started this place on January 12, 2007, if you want to check my math). Nevertheless, critics will consider this a truly remarkable episode, even by our usually remarkable standards. We’ll keep setting ’em up; you keep knocking them out!
RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 124
[Note: You can add Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your iTunes by clicking here. The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player.]
Jan 112014
This performance of “Let It Ride” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive makes me hungry! I can’t help but think of eating a big steak dinner. Every member of the band has spectacular Look that suggests Big Steak Dinner. In fact, I’m about to cook up some beef tacos to at least partially satisfy my hunger.
If given the choice to feast on the members of ZZ Top or the members of BTO, which band would you eat?
Remember the old cartoon trick, where the hunter looks at the hunted and sees the image of a fresh, steaming steak in the place of the hunted’s face? That’s how I feel as I watch this clip—and I’ve watched it a half dozen times already.
Try watching this clip and describe which member of BTO is most appetizing. Please be descriptive, because I can never keep straight which guy is Bachman, which is Turner, and which is Overdrive.
I look forward to your comments dinner!
Loading ...Jan 112014
This cool interview mrclean sent me a few weeks ago with Pere Ubu synthesists Allen Ravenstine and Robert Wheeler reminded me of something that’s missing from the pile of musical stuff I’ve collected in my garage studio over the years: an analog EML modular synthesizer. Although I’m sure I would never figure out how to use one properly, if I could even figure out how to set it up, I want one.
What’s your Rock ‘n Roll Gear Holy Grail?
Jan 102014
Is it possible that Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions‘ “I’m the One Who Loves You” is so strong a song that not even a cheesy ’80s cover by Santana can ruin it? You tell me…after the break!
Jan 102014
(AKA Hey Jude.)
I don’t think you can buy The Beatles Again (aka Hey Jude), a vinyl collection of non-album tracks, as a distinct CD. It may have changed in recent years, but there was a long stretch when you also could not buy a distinct CD of Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ similar odds & sods collection, Taking Liberties. Soon, when all physical media are done away with, none of this will matter whatsoever and I’ll be grumpier than ever. Before this worse day comes, let me me bemoan the fact that not all the odds & sods collections of my youth are available as distinct packages in the digital age. I don’t like having those tracks split up as bonus tracks on various albums.
I’m pretty sure, meanwhile, that The Who’s Odds & Sods has always survived the digital age as a distinct product, right?
What odds & sods collections from the vinyl age do you most regret seeing broken up over the reissues of various original albums?
Jan 092014
On a whim I went searching for video footage of Peter Blegvad performing anything from his 1983, Andy Partridge-produced album, The Naked Shakespeare. I’ve always loved this album. Colin Moulding contributes bass to a few songs. Terry Chambers may appear as well. I need to dig it out and digitize it.
Anyhow…to my surprise, I found a clip of Blegvad lip-syncing “Karen” on Top of the Pops, or some English show like that. The video is mildly not safe for work owing to the appearance of a tastefully naked butt.
Anyhow…rather that attempt to strike up an in-depth conversation over the works of Blegvad, I thought I’d do my part by simply exposing him to some of you and then launching a Last Man Standing on Name Songs. There’s one catch: We must list them in alphabetical order, beginning with my entry, “Karen,” a name that begins with the letter K.
It shouldn’t be hard to list a name song beginning with an L, M, N, O, or P, but we’ll see how far we get toward the end of alphabet. We will exclude the letter X from play. How many name songs are written to Xavier? (NOTE: If we can get through Z one time, we can consider eliminating that letter from play in the second round.) If we get all the way through to J, we will start over at K.
Got that? Let the first name song, beginning with L, appear in the Comments!
UPDATE: Comments are set to close sometime tomorrow (1/20/14). Consider the conclusion to this Last Man Standing a race against the clock!
