{"id":962,"date":"2007-11-02T01:11:34","date_gmt":"2007-11-02T05:11:34","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-05-14T13:18:40","modified_gmt":"2010-05-14T13:18:40","slug":"the-importance-of-being-well-lit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-importance-of-being-well-lit\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Being Well Lit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It took me a long time to embrace a big chunk of <strong>Guided By Voices<\/strong>. Ranking high among a myriad of beefs I had to get over was my beef with their <strong>Look<\/strong>. I couldn&#8217;t get a handle on their Look, it was as if they didn&#8217;t care, and they weren&#8217;t blessed with the physical gifts that should allow rock musicians not to care. Last night I came across this video. Watch it and see, through my eyes, a cool version of GBV &#8211; complete with a Look &#8211; performing live on television!<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2LWN9_kypU0?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>What a difference a well-lit television set makes for live performances! The more I thought about this the more it became clear that my underlying lack of interest in the old late-night concert show, <strong>Midnight Special<\/strong>, ran deeper than the typically bloated &#8217;70s rockers and that one-trick pony <strong>Wolfman Jack<\/strong>. Take a look at what I&#8217;m getting at.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AXTENLjqEVg?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>OK, that wasn&#8217;t fair. Try these clips; they perfectly illustrate what I&#8217;m getting at. First, a band I briefly thought was great as a teenager, seconds after first hearing this, their greatest contribution to rock &#8216;n roll. Check it out!<!--more--><\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gEHlZN7U7Tk?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>This performance by <strong>Cheap Trick<\/strong> is from <em>Midnight Special<\/em>, that show I could never get into watching. Look how flat and fuzzy the video quality is! Porn of that era had better production values. The problem runs deeper than some nearly 30-year-old Betamax transfer. With 1:53 remaining in the song&#8217;s countdown, a staple of <em>Midnight Special<\/em> production values appears: the <strong>&#8220;starry&#8221; lights effect<\/strong>. I know nothing about video and photography techniques, but you know what I&#8217;m talking about, and if you know the inherent cheese in this technique, which was once popular in &#8217;70s wedding photography. Broadcast in this light, all the things that make me uncomfortable about Cheap Trick come to the fore: the guitar player&#8217;s antics, Zander&#8217;s bedroom mirror moves, the <strong>37 guitar picks<\/strong> taped to that boom mic stand (was Rick Nielson the first rocker other than a drummer or keyboardist to use a boom stand? Guitarists [and lead singers] should use straight stands!).<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iyzvU6OGr_U?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Above, the same Cheap Trick performing &#8220;I Want You to Want Me&#8221;, a song I disliked and quickly grew tired of hearing seconds after I first heard their breakthrough live version. This performance is from the British tv show, <strong>Old Grey Whistle Test<\/strong>, which had superior production values. Look at the shadows coming off Zander and Peterson! Check out how sexy Zander&#8217;s split ends appear on this performance. That&#8217;s good lighting! Around the 2:02 mark there&#8217;s even an appearance of Midnight Special&#8217;s flared light effect, but here &#8211; following one of my least favorite vocal effects, the trailing, repeating echo on Zander&#8217;s voice during the middle eighth &#8211; it&#8217;s all right. With about 28 seconds left, as the breakdown kicks in, Nielson flips his hat brim up, then flips a guitar pick into the air, catching it in his mouth. I normally find this among Nielson&#8217;s most annoying moves, but the way the camera catches him set across the stage I can admire the hard work he put into his schtick. On that <em>Midnight Special<\/em> clip I don&#8217;t get a chance to appreciate his craft; he&#8217;s a blur of Bowery Boys routines.<\/p>\n<p>So that&#8217;s my point: Guided By Voices, under most circumstances, No Attention to Look. Lit well and with a little effort for this tv appearance, they suddenly look cool. Same goes for Cheap Trick.<\/p>\n<p>Finally&#8230;if you haven&#8217;t suffered enough:<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EJ7mEff3_Nk?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It took me a long time to embrace a big chunk of Guided By Voices. Ranking high among a myriad of beefs I had to get over was my beef with their Look. I couldn&#8217;t get a handle on their Look, it was as if they didn&#8217;t care, and they weren&#8217;t blessed with the physical <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-importance-of-being-well-lit\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[258],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}