1) my friend brought a John Coltrane tape with on a car trip. I had heard the name but thought he was a blues artist from the 30s
2) I thought rave mixtapes contained music made solely by the person who turned out to just be the dj. I also had no idea how the music was created. I had heard that, for instance, Terry Mullan (again, a dj not a producer) had obtained a super rare "acid box", a piece of equipment I assumed was from the 70s, was analog, and was the size of a refrigerator.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 19:14 (two years ago) link
I used to think everything on a CD was actually played live in the studio. It blew my mind to find out everyone was just playing their parts separately. Like I thought Sting just brought in some session singers who sounded just like him to do the backup vocals.
― frogbs, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 19:18 (two years ago) link
All three of the Beastie Boys died of drug overdoses sometime shortly after their first album became huge. RIP.
― Marty J. Bilge (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 19:18 (two years ago) link
3) I thought all harmonized guitar leads were one solitary guitar player using a "harmonizer" effects pedals and didn't realize two guitars playing harmonic parts at the same time also sounded like that (I was 14 and partially listening to my dumb friend, who suggested this)
4) I thought no death vocals were real and all done with digital pitch-shifting effects
5) I thought the singer on "Holding Back the Years" was a black woman and not Mick Hucknall
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:13 (two years ago) link
6) I heard about Iggy Pop long before actually seeing or hearing him and I imagined that he would be flamboyantly costumed like Kiss. Something to do with confusing "Iggy" with "Ozzy", both outrageous characters in my mind.
― visiting, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:26 (two years ago) link
i also thought all recordings were done live in real time with no overdubs, in the same order they appear on the album. i felt cheated when i discovered otherwise. i assumed the music in music videos was recorded live along with the visuals except when that was obviously impossible in which case i assumed there were just a few overdubs
slightly older i thought that combining the right music with the right substances in the right environment could unlock the secret of existence or some such bullshit, a pretty common teenage thing that i wish i didn't sometimes wish i could still believe
― Left, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:33 (two years ago) link
I thought there was a long, slow, and orderly progression in rock/pop of the 60s and 70s - first in the early/mid 60s the beatles came along, did their thing and then broke up, then the stones had a few years, then the who appeared, then maybe pink floyd, etc.
― Believe me, grow a lemon tree. (ledge), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:37 (two years ago) link
An ex of mine grew up thinking that the Beatles played all the instruments on their records - eg Paul played the piccolo solo on 'Penny Lane'.
― Piedie Gimbel, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:38 (two years ago) link
I used to think that the names after a song in brackets on a record sleeve or label were some kind of indication of the relative prominence of these group members on the recording, rather than the songwriting credits.
― joni mitchell jarre (anagram), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:40 (two years ago) link
i also thought all recordings were done live in real time with no overdubs
I legit got upset when I first heard "U Can't Touch This" cos there's one part where Hammer talks over himself and I couldn't figure it out
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:45 (two years ago) link
i thought that you could separate out/combine individual tracks- guitar, bass, drum, vocals- by how deep or shallow the headphone was in the the CD player's jack. first is drums, then you can hear the guitars + drums, then guitar+drums+vocals. tbf for some CDs this actually kind of did work
― global tetrahedron, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:48 (two years ago) link
That does work. I can't remember what you call that effect.
― "Bobby Gillespie" (ft. Heroin) (Tom D.), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:54 (two years ago) link
Not exactly how you described it though!
― "Bobby Gillespie" (ft. Heroin) (Tom D.), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:55 (two years ago) link
well i'm going to tell my 14 year old brother he was wrong, then
― global tetrahedron, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:55 (two years ago) link
that Peter Frampton licked peanut butter out of his armpits
― sleeve, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:57 (two years ago) link
(xp) I think you lose (much of) the centre part of the stereo spectrum. I used to do it all the time and you can do with it speakers too, but I've forgotten how.
― "Bobby Gillespie" (ft. Heroin) (Tom D.), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 20:59 (two years ago) link
I thought the singer on "Holding Back the Years" was a black woman and not Mick Hucknall
Similarly, my mental image of Rick Astley was closer to Aaron Neville. When I saw the music video, I thought they used a little white kid as a joke
― Vinnie, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 21:05 (two years ago) link
Mistaken beliefs about music you had when you were younger
― visiting, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 21:05 (two years ago) link
I remember when R.E.M.'s 'The One I Love" was rereleased a friend's older brother told me that it was originally recorded by their older brothers in the band The Cult, under its original title of 'Fire'
― PaulTMA, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 21:09 (two years ago) link
I think this is a common one but I thought the Grateful Dead were going to be like Black Sabbath/Priest early metal stuff
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 21:11 (two years ago) link
i thought live albums were inherently better than studio recordings because the former had no overdubs, which were ‘cheating’
basically wrong on every possible level
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 21:19 (two years ago) link
When I was about 4 I thought that when I played a 7" the singer was in a vocal booth somewhere singing it to me live. I must have seen film of someone in a recording studio on Blue Peter or whatever, hence my knowledge of what they looked like.
― john landis as man being smashed into window (uncredited) (Matt #2), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 21:27 (two years ago) link
^finally, a truly "ridiculous" one!
― Shallot Shortage 2021 (morrisp), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 21:30 (two years ago) link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Phase_Stereo
― Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 21:34 (two years ago) link
― assert (matttkkkk), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 21:54 (two years ago) link
And also whether they were double-tracked!
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 22:06 (two years ago) link
I used to think everything on a CD was actually played live in the studio. It blew my mind to find out everyone was just playing their parts separately. Like I thought Sting just brought in some session singers who sounded just like him to do the backup vocals.― frogbs, Wednesday, September 1, 2021 3:18 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
― frogbs, Wednesday, September 1, 2021 3:18 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
It was on a hike down Old Rag with my Boy Scout troop. My best friend and I were enthusing over the virtues of heavy metal bands like Motley Crue, who played their instruments live in the studio, compared to the phony pop stars like Paula Abdul who used overdubs. I don't know why we were so certain about these facts or if we even had a full understanding of what we meant. But his dad was hiking with us that day and took us down a few notches.
― peace, man, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 22:25 (two years ago) link
i also thought all recordings were done live in real time with no overdubs, in the same order they appear on the album
I wondered how they did the fade-outs.
That rock stars all learned their instruments the way you learn in music schools, reading notes from the Hal Leonard books.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 22:49 (two years ago) link
Actually they all learned from Mel Bay books.
― Josefa, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 22:58 (two years ago) link
When I saw those cheap Casio keyboards with buttons like "flute" and "guitar" and "violin," I assumed pretty all music was played with those, and that the original instruments were no longer necessary. (Kinda prescient, in a way)
Re: Mel Bay, my grandfather played with him as a duo (guitar/mandolin)
― Robert Cray-Cray (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 23:04 (two years ago) link
Damn! Legend in the game
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 23:14 (two years ago) link
Based on album cover photos, that bands all had a fabulous time hanging out with each other.
― that's not my post, Thursday, 2 September 2021 00:18 (two years ago) link
i thought macy gray was british for an embarrassingly long time b/c when the song was a hit here in the states someone i know who was from england mentioned that it had already been a hit over there
― dyl, Thursday, 2 September 2021 00:41 (two years ago) link
For a long time I thought The Pointer Sisters “jump for my love” was Kenny Loggins singing
― brimstead, Thursday, 2 September 2021 00:47 (two years ago) link
At an age where pretty much everything I knew about the music industry came from sources like "Some of Your Friends are Already This Fucked", I had the vague yet terrifying sense that signing a record contract and never recouping your advance meant that you'd end up in some sort of hellish, lifelong peonage instead of just not getting to make any more records.
― swim, Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:08 (two years ago) link
Xpost I was somewhat older than I'd like to admit when I found out Sparks weren't British
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:10 (two years ago) link
I thought there were no 'one hit wonders' before the 1980s.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:10 (two years ago) link
Also that you needed to be able to write standard music notation in order to compose songs
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:14 (two years ago) link
I was somewhat older than I'd like to admit when I found out Sparks weren't British
I found this out this morning. I may have known at one point and forgotten it, though; that's increasingly common.
And, yeah, it obv makes sense that if you start learning from the Hal Leonard (or Mel Bay) books, you'd be writing your shit down on staff paper by the time you become a rock star.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:23 (two years ago) link
I wasn't even that young - nearly an adult - when I believed that a band's lyrical output corresponded with their real-life behaviour and preoccupations, so a band whose lyrics dealt mostly with sexual matters must be raving priapists. I remember being concerned about a girl in high-school whose godfather was apparently [the Scottish lead singer of a famous Australian hard rock group]. Just on the basis of the words he sang, I pictured him walking into the room and treating every female he saw like Monty Python's Dirty Vicar.Some of this prejudice remains in that I'm distrustful of acts whose lyricists focus obsessively on specific topics like cars, robots or corpse mutilation, in favour of those who explore more broad and diverse areas.
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:23 (two years ago) link
Not me, I was a jaded soul...but one summer I did tell my little sister that "the lady in Missing Persons" was going to be her 1st grade teacher and she was sorely disappointed when school started!
None of the shame you guys feel compares to the guilt I feel about my evil teenage self.
― Night of Olay: The Resurrection (I M Losted), Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:28 (two years ago) link
I thought all radio was freeform and disc jockeys always played whatever they felt like.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:37 (two years ago) link
I was almost the opposite. I was a little surprised when it turned out that a lot of rock stars who sang about intoxication and casual promiscuity were in fact just drug and sex addicts. I'd sort of just assumed it was metaphor and imagination. (I mean, surely they were spending their time practising scales and writing down music.)xp
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:38 (two years ago) link
(I mean, surely they were spending their time practising scales and writing down music.)
Lol
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:43 (two years ago) link
This gets at an idea that's been rattling around in my head for a while now, which is that no artist has a richer or more exemplary relationship with the cultural shift of the last 30ish years from audiences needing to believe that artists are bad people to audiences needing to believe that artists are good people than Insane Clown Posse.
― swim, Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:54 (two years ago) link
I assumed all musicians were always dressed immaculately, a drink in hand, looking out the floor to ceiling windows of their penthouse suite (they're in a big city of course... it's raining... neon signs, etc...). They spend all their time with interesting people only and talk about art and philosophy exclusively.
This was the effect of mainlining imagery and/or music from Japan, ABC, Roxy Music, etc... before my brain knew what to do with the information. Oh to be that innocent again...
― mr.raffles, Thursday, 2 September 2021 01:56 (two years ago) link
I thought there were live drums on Endtroducing and drove myself crazy trying to figure out how to play like that.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 2 September 2021 02:05 (two years ago) link
― mr.raffles, Wednesday, September 1, 2021 8:56 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
sometime on ilx someone called stuff in this vein "silk bathrobe music"
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 2 September 2021 02:06 (two years ago) link
that scans
― mr.raffles, Thursday, 2 September 2021 02:10 (two years ago) link
― dyl, Wednesday, September 1, 2021 7:41 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
The first time I saw Brad Mehldau live, sitting in the Village Vanguard before the show I said to the person I was with “I think he’s British” - then simultaneously realized it had come out way louder than I meant and that he was sitting two tables away in obvious earshot. Then shortly after he was on stage and spoke to the audience in a very clearly American accent.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 2 September 2021 02:35 (two years ago) link
That my classical music loving dad would be impressed with string-laden rock music like ELP and Moody Blues.
― that's not my post, Thursday, 2 September 2021 02:38 (two years ago) link
Haha, I remember playing Classic Yes for a friend who was really into classical piano in Grade 9 or 10. He didn't get it at all.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 03:01 (two years ago) link
I was convinced that all the 60s/70s stars who had hits on MTV in the 80s were completely brand new, pretty much just putting out music for the first time, which was confusing because a lot of them seemed pretty old and not at all in tune with the synth pop styles of the day.
― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Thursday, 2 September 2021 03:21 (two years ago) link
When I was a child I used to assume that people had simply stopped writing classical music years ago. I didn't realise there was such a thing as contemporary composers still writing in the same tradition.
― mirostones, Thursday, 2 September 2021 03:37 (two years ago) link
I also thought Macy Gray was British until about a month ago, really not sure why.
― fc_TEFH28mo (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 2 September 2021 05:29 (two years ago) link
As a small child I was watching a kids' tv show with a jazz band playing. At one point the trombonist had to stop and tip sand out of his horn (maybe they were playing on a beach, idk). For yeeears I thought trombones were filled with sand and that this was somehow integral to how they worked. In a music lesson at school when I was about 10 we were discussing how various instruments made their sound, and when we got to trombones I raised my hand and told the teacher about the sand.
― mahb, Thursday, 2 September 2021 07:03 (two years ago) link
Not my story, but my mother once told me about being a small child in Scotland, in the time before most households had TVs, but it was coming. So one day she was sitting there listening to a radio program, when her father said to her “You just watch! Someday soon there’s going to be moving pictures to go along with the sounds” and she misunderstood, took him literally and just stared the shit out of that radio for ages.
― Kim, Thursday, 2 September 2021 09:04 (two years ago) link
I thought Morrissey wasn't a cunt
― pings and noodles (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 2 September 2021 09:55 (two years ago) link
Lock thread.
― "Bobby Gillespie" (ft. Heroin) (Tom D.), Thursday, 2 September 2021 09:57 (two years ago) link
As a young boy, I couldn't work out how the TOTP singles chart was compiled; the concept of physical sales was totally foreign to me. So I concluded that it must have been done by polling all the cool and trendy people each week. Maybe they all sent postcards to Radio One.
I also thought that every pop group must be made up of best friends, who lived together and did everything together, like a family. I once convinced myself that I saw all of Middle Of The Road taking a stroll together along a canal towpath - this seemed entirely plausible.
― mike t-diva, Thursday, 2 September 2021 10:37 (two years ago) link
I probably thought that video clips were a faithful representation of how stars spent their time in real life
― Nabozo, Thursday, 2 September 2021 11:25 (two years ago) link
I thought that the way rave music was represented on TOTP was how it was composed in real life, eg; lively guys prodding keyboards and e-drums while a guy fusses with decks and a diva wails her one or 2 line vocal. It was quite a shock to realise later that it was all made by sullen looking blokes chainsmoking while prodding at an Atari ST, and the onstage 'diva' was always their housemate miming to a nicked acapella sample.
― (the one with 3 L's) (Willl), Thursday, 2 September 2021 11:42 (two years ago) link
I thought Morrissey wasn't a cunt― pings and noodles (Noodle Vague)
― pings and noodles (Noodle Vague)
I mean I always thought Morrissey was a cunt but I thought he was my cunt.
― Sam Weller, Thursday, 2 September 2021 12:18 (two years ago) link
I thought that the way rave music was represented on TOTP was how it was composed in real life,eg; lively guys prodding keyboards and e-drums while a guy fusses with decks and a diva wails her one or 2 line vocal.
eg; lively guys prodding keyboards and e-drums while a guy fusses with decks and a diva wails her one or 2 line vocal.
I saw one of these recently and it was absolutely hilarious.
― peace, man, Thursday, 2 September 2021 12:29 (two years ago) link
I also thought that every pop group must be made up of best friends, who lived together and did everything together
Well in Help, the Beatles all entered separate townhouse doors, but then it was revealed that the houses were all connected inside.
I vaguely remember seeing some CD insert art (Beastie Boys? Sugar Ray?) showing a drawing of an absurd fantasy lair where each band member had their own level, and there were like waterslides between the levels and a basketball court. Seemed like a pretty great way to live.
And I'm reasonably certain bands on shows like the Monkees and Josie and the Pussycats and the Bugaloos lived in big houses together, right? So it wasn't so much of a stretch, especially when you found out about the Band and the Dead, many of whom often did live together at times.
― Robert Cray-Cray (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 2 September 2021 12:54 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWksvwqM3Ok
― "Bobby Gillespie" (ft. Heroin) (Tom D.), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:01 (two years ago) link
2) I thought rave mixtapes contained music made solely by the person who turned out to just be the dj. I also had no idea how the music was created.
I sort of thought this - I knew they were playing records most of the time, but sometimes when they would just play a short snippet of a track I thought they were just playing that live using a keyboard and drum machine as a segue into the next track, especially if it was a fairly simple line with no samples. I think having the MC freestyling stuff over the top made it seem "live"
― bovarism, Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:08 (two years ago) link
Are you talking about the Space Station inside Hello Nasty?
https://live.staticflickr.com/4198/34843286476_b5f98058f0_b.jpg
― peace, man, Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:16 (two years ago) link
I also thought every song was played live, particularly rock music. It’s very rockist to recommend an album or a band as “real music” which made me think all rock bands just went in the studio, recorded a couple of live takes all playing at the same time and picked the one they liked better. I was very impressed at some of them and couldn’t wrap my head around idk 4 musicians sounding like 10 sometimes.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:21 (two years ago) link
Also didn’t really understand the concept of loops and sampling so thought electronic and hip hop music were also performed live with a band playing with insane precision the same thing over and over.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:23 (two years ago) link
It’s very rockist to recommend an album or a band as “real music” which made me think all rock bands just went in the studio, recorded a couple of live takes all playing at the same time and picked the one they liked better.
I mean...before the early 1960s, that's exactly what they did. (And even after that; I have tons of Elvis compilations where he's coaching the entire band, backup singers and all, through take after take in the studio.)
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:24 (two years ago) link
Thanks, peace, man, that was it.
― Robert Cray-Cray (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:24 (two years ago) link
― but also fuck you (unperson)
Yeah! I think that’s were that attitude as rock being “more real” than other genres that were created and refined in the next decades comes from. I sort of started by listening to music in the mis 90’s and the oldest albums I owned -were given to me by “the cool uncle” and they were mostly 70’s records (led zep, pink floyd, yes, the who). Bands like Led Zep and The Who sounded “real” to me but had no idea how Pink Floyd or Yes created all those sounds live, assumed it was all the keyboard/synth dude doing them since it was the only instrument that seemed to provide endless possibilities of sound - which isn’t really that off tbh
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:33 (two years ago) link
By the way I'm pretty sure that I didn't REALLY believe that the Beastie Boys lived all together in a cool tricked-out space station. I was 27 years old when that album came out.
But it must have struck a chord in me, of all the childhood times I got lost in one of those oversized books with cutaway drawings (David Macaulay, Stephen Biesty, Richard Scarry) and of drawing my own secret lairs in my spiral notebooks.
That said: if the Beastie Boys HAD lived in an absurd fantasy space lair, that woulda been pretty fuckin cool.
― Robert Cray-Cray (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:34 (two years ago) link
― mahb, Thursday, September 2, 2021 3:03 AM bookmarkflaglink
this is great
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:40 (two years ago) link
Yeah, early Beatles stuff was live in the studio and ofc there still are plenty of bands that work that way. I'm pretty sure New Jersey and Permanent Vacation weren't, though. If you want to be sure you're most likely getting real musicians in real time, you can always stick to jazz and chamber music, which is not a bad policy.
Btw, Moka, Yes did recreate all the classic prog records live without backing tracks or session players, p much like you said, with banks of keyboards and effects pedals.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:42 (two years ago) link
Xps
I think that sense of wonder of how they even designed those sounds is what really made me start obsessing about music.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:43 (two years ago) link
this is an adult mistake but
until last year, I thought Real Life's "Send Me an Angel" was by the Scorpions. Not just because the Scorpions do have a song called "Send Me an Angel", but the vocals sounded to me like Klaus Meine.
I found out I was wrong last year after telling three people matter of factly that it was a Scorpions song.
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:43 (two years ago) link
I think even as a kid I did figure that Hysteria was done with a lot of studio processing tbf, though I still thought Rick Allen played his drum parts.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:44 (two years ago) link
also when I was a kid I thought Floyd's "Have a Cigar" was Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train". had never heard Ozzy, and there's the line about the "gravy train" in Have a Cigar. I kept wondering why people raved about this song cos it sucked so bad.
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:46 (two years ago) link
Look, I wasn't gonna ask! The Beasties did have G-Son studios though, in which they had a skate ramp and basketball court, iirc.
― peace, man, Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:53 (two years ago) link
Plus lots of bands do start out living together, just not in glamourous conditions like the Monkees house.
― peace, man, Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:54 (two years ago) link
Xpost: It sounds like I’m throwing shade at rock music for not “being real”, I was mirroring my experience with those of frogbs or peace upthread.
I didn’t really care if a song was actually being played live or not. I still don’t but I do find impressive when a musician manages to do things live that are too complex for most people (I mean, yeah it’s always inspiring to see people being the best at what they do, musicians or not) or when they find creative ways to overcome limitations.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:54 (two years ago) link
I remembered another one:
When I first heard “Angel” by Robbie Williams on the radio, I misheard the artist as Robin Williams and 100% thought it was the actor singing it. I loved him as an actor and was seriously impressed at how good he was as a singer. Taped the song and obsessed with it until I found out it wasn’t actually Robin Williams singing it and lost plenty of its magic.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:59 (two years ago) link
I still don’t but I do find impressive when a musician manages to do things live that are too complex for most people (I mean, yeah it’s always inspiring to see people being the best at what they do, musicians or not) or when they find creative ways to overcome limitations.
Agreed. The most extreme example of this for me was seeing Rush live and watching Geddy Lee sing and play bass while surrounded by keyboards which he'd also play (sometimes with foot pedals). Insanity.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 2 September 2021 14:10 (two years ago) link
I used to think Macy Gray was British. I'm not sure how I came to this conclusion.
― charlie rex, Thursday, 2 September 2021 14:13 (two years ago) link
we should start a club
― fc_TEFH28mo (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 2 September 2021 14:20 (two years ago) link
Back in the 80s I thought that disco/house/techno DJ's could flawlessly mix random records that they had never (or maybe once) heard before, with smooth long transitions.
When I started DJing myself and met other DJs, of course I quickly found out that (almost) everyone practices the same transitions over and over, and memorizes cue points/sections, before they go out and play a set.
― Siegbran, Thursday, 2 September 2021 14:22 (two years ago) link
I was petrified of seeing Sparks on TV as a kid because I genuinely thought that evil Ron Mael was using his death stare to hypnotise Russell into singing in an unnerving high-pitched voice.
― Portsmouth Bubblejet, Thursday, 2 September 2021 14:22 (two years ago) link
My friend in eighth grade claimed James Iha was "Siamese" and that's where the Smashing Pumpkins got the name for their second album.
― Sam Weller, Thursday, 2 September 2021 14:34 (two years ago) link
Before I learned that there was a Top 40 chart rundown every Tuesday, I thought the charts were completely up-to-the minute, i.e. the positions of the songs in the charts fluctuated on an hourly basis depending on how many copies were being sold at that time.
― joni mitchell jarre (anagram), Thursday, 2 September 2021 14:44 (two years ago) link
The Beasties did have G-Son studios though, in which they had a skate ramp and basketball court, iirc.
A half-court iirc. And they DID all live together in a mansion while recording Paul's Boutique; much of their 70s costuming at the time came from the closets of the older couple they were renting from.
as an annoyed teen, I phoned the radio to correct the DJ who back-announced Express Yourself with "Ice Cube there, out front of NWA..."
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:17 (two years ago) link
I knew Paul's Boutique was all samples, but I thought Check Your Head was almost all them playing instruments. Wasn't until I got familiar with sample sources in mid 2000s that I realized how much CYH still relied on them.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:23 (two years ago) link
lol yeah when I heard "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" on the radio I was like whoa wait a minute
― frogbs, Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:32 (two years ago) link
1) Although I knew what sampling was, I thought that it was more common for every element to be sampled separately (ie the guitar from here, the bass from there, the drums from there). Obviously that's been done on a Dilla or DJ Shadow level, but I was routinely shocked to learn that a hip hop track was usually some entire song looped + added drums.
2) Similarly I got that drum & bass and jungle were made with sampled breakbeats, but I couldn't really picture how it was done using samplers. I thought maybe every little hit (the cymbals, the snare, the kick) was programmed manually, which seemed monumental for a 7 min track. Of course that's how I did it when I eventually got a copy of Cubase (and often still do tbh).
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:43 (two years ago) link
Totally had the same idea about Check Your Head (although as far as I know the drums on 'So Whatcha Want' are original, which is an achievement)
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:45 (two years ago) link
I always thought frogbs was British. I only found out he isn't ladt month.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:46 (two years ago) link
frogbeezyweezy
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:47 (two years ago) link
co-sign the Check Your Head thing, but also Ill Communication: I was very disappointed when I heard Root Down by Jimmy Smith.
― mahb, Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:53 (two years ago) link
There are loads of homemade sounds on Check Your Head, including the drums on Whatcha Want. They built a long tunnel around the kick drum out of cardboard boxes in a warehouse space. The snare has an 1176 in nuke mode. It was supposed to be their version of Bonham.
At the "G-Spot" house where they recorded Paul's Boutique, Ad Rock had his own underground guest house with a window that looked into the swimming pool.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:57 (two years ago) link
Both those ones Jordan listed apply to me too. Think I was most disappointed by DJ Premier, virtually every track is a loop with tweaked drums. Still love his production though.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:14 (two years ago) link
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 2 September 2021 13:24 (two hours ago) link
Well, in a lot of cases “the band” was just session ringers a la the wrecking crew. But yes.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:19 (two years ago) link
At the "G-Spot" house where they recorded Paul's BoutiqueThey lived there (and the center spread / gatefold photo is taken through that underwater window) but recorded in Matt Dike’s 1bdr apartment iirc
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:44 (two years ago) link
until the early-2000s, i thought billy idol was david bowie. or more like, i thought bowie was billy idol
― professional anti- (Karl Malone), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:46 (two years ago) link
Like his alter-ego?
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:49 (two years ago) link
nah, i just didn't listen to music much and in my mind there was only my memory of billy idol in the 80s. someone would reference david bowie and i'd just think of billy idol and be like "yeah, i don't really like him that much but i don't know..."
― professional anti- (Karl Malone), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:51 (two years ago) link
david bowie songs i had never heard, once, at that point: all of them except for maybe let's dance. no space oddity, no ziggy stardust, nothing from the 70s to my knowledge. also, i guess at that time bowie was coming off of his late 90s NIN/goatee look, so he resembled billy idol more than any other time in his career. plus, the internet didn't exist in the early 2000s, so
― professional anti- (Karl Malone), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:52 (two years ago) link
I used to get those two confused, as well.
― Shallot Shortage 2021 (morrisp), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:59 (two years ago) link
I prpbably associate his 'Earthling' era look with Keith Flint and Geri Halliwell more than NIN. He looked like 1996.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:13 (two years ago) link
just about everybody I went to school with thought Billy Jo Armstrong was British
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:13 (two years ago) link
Billy Joe Forsyth-Smythe
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:17 (two years ago) link
1st thing I remember hearing about Billy Jo was criticism for him trying to sound British
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:20 (two years ago) link
billy Idol as star of Labyrinth?
― Stevolende, Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:40 (two years ago) link
Keith Flint
This reminds me that when "Firestarter" came out I had it in my teenage head for at least a few months that the vocal hook was a John Lydon feature.
― swim, Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:53 (two years ago) link
For whatever reason, I also remember that this band was without equal in its ability to inspire schoolyard kremlinology.
― swim, Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:55 (two years ago) link
I also thought every song was played live, particularly rock music. It’s very rockist to recommend an album or a band as “real music” which made me think all rock bands just went in the studio, recorded a couple of live takes all playing at the same time and picked the one they liked better.Dylan recorded this way at least through John Wesley Harding. He didn’t have overdubs on his records in part because, by his own admission, he didn’t know overdubs were possible. He operated on the same assumption, that everything (including something like Sgt. Pepper) was recorded live in the studio. Now I’m wondering: what was the first Dylan record with overdubs?
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:04 (two years ago) link
Some internet sleuthing suggests that Charlie McCoy's guitar fills on "Desolation Row" are overdubbed. Also, TIL that those guitar fills were played by Charlie McCoy!
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:11 (two years ago) link
sounds like you found the same reddit thread as me :)
― Shallot Shortage 2021 (morrisp), Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:16 (two years ago) link
So nobody told him about overdubs?? Were the producers and studio engineers too scared of Bobby Z?
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:19 (two years ago) link
haha, yup. then I followed it to this website which provides a little more interesting information, though no reason to think it's definitive. It notes that Tombstone Blues had the Chambers Brothers recorded separately as backup singers, but it wasn't used. Also -- and this is some serious sleuthing -- re "Outlaw Blues" from Bringing it All Back Home:
In all the stereo mixes we can more clearly hear a harmonica that riffs away throughout the song. This goes on behind Dylan's vocal, so it was often assumed to have been played by one of the other musicians - maybe John Sebastian. However, it's now clear that the harmonica was played by Dylan himself. On the Collector's Edition of The Cutting Edge, at the beginning of the abortive Take 2, Dylan says, "When we get done, I'm gonna dub in the harmonica". The studio recording sheet indeed shows that after the complete Take 3, there was an overdub take of identical length. Curiously, The Cutting Edge makes no mention of this, and fails to give any musician credit for the harmonica; only the overdubbed version of this final take is included.
Sorry to derail thread, but I am surprised to see that this ridiculously incorrect belief that many of us had about Back to Basics recording was actually pretty correct for longer than I thought!
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:30 (two years ago) link
that anecdote also calls into question the already highly dubious claim that Bob didn't know overdubs were possible. Maybe on his first album or two though...
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:36 (two years ago) link
He originally planned to have Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson dub electric guitar and organ over John Wesley Harding (hey, it could still happen!). Self Portrait was mostly overdubbed after Dylan and a couple of other musicians recorded acoustic tracks.
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:46 (two years ago) link
When I was a child I disparaged someone - I think it was Laura Branigan - for not playing any instruments or writing her own songs. My mother gently said "Pufflet, singers are a thing. The voice is an instrument."
Weird how much I'd internalized the post-Beatle snobbery about singer-songwriters being nobler than interpreters. I was speaking in perhaps 1980, and espousing an attitude that was barely 15 years old at that point.
― Robert Cray-Cray (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:47 (two years ago) link
I had a ton of these misconceptions when I was younger - about the writing/recording process, "realness", artistic personas vs. real life, expecting the dead to sound like sabbath, etc.
For me the biggest factual one was that I somehow recalled seeing the wreck of the edmund fitzgerald, which sank when I was 16 months old approximately 160 miles from where I lived. The song was so ubiquitous when I was younger that I convinced myself I saw it going down offshore at the nearby state park that was my only context for lake superior at the time. I thought this was kind of weird to have thought but later learned a friend who wasn't even born at the time had pretty much the same memory that I did.
― joygoat, Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:48 (two years ago) link
Also on Self Portrait, Bob harmonized with himself for the first time on "The Boxer".
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:48 (two years ago) link
Yes, YMP. Forgive my boring challops but I always think singing is a thing like playing guitar: lots of people can sing a litle something or play a few cowboy chords, but to do either at a high level requires quite a bit of work.
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:50 (two years ago) link
There was an interview with one of Dylan's engineers from one of his self-produced records from the last 20 years, who was recounting when Bob learned about pro tools and how he could rerecord individual lines and even words or take a line from one version and add to the rest of a song and it blew Bob's mind because now he could fix his flubs.
― Taliban! (PBKR), Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:50 (two years ago) link
But clearly he knew about fixing flubs with tape, they were doing it in the '60s. Obv Pro Tools makes it easier.
― Shallot Shortage 2021 (morrisp), Thursday, 2 September 2021 18:56 (two years ago) link
Here it is, sTadows anecdote and all:
https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/recording-with-bob-dylan-chris-shaw-tells-all-37854/
Also, I love this part:
Part of the problem for me on that record was because he didn’t want to wear headphones. We were sitting there on the first day of mixing, and he said, “I wanna rerecord the second verse again, change a couple of lines.” And I said, “Okay, let me get a headphone mix together so you can have something to sing to.” And he’s like, “Nah, nah, I don’t like wearing headphones.” So I said, “Kay, well, let me get a pair of speakers rigged up and you can sing to the speakers.” And he goes, “Oh, I used to do that with Daniel, I dunno if I like doing that.” So what I wound up having to do was, we put the whole band back in the room with him, and *the band* would wear headphones, and then the band would play along with the track, and Bob would kind of look over at Charlie Sexton, and Charlie would be mouthing the words to the song so Bob would know where he was, and then Bob would sit there and start singing into the microphone, and the I’d just drop-in Bob’s new mic, onto the existing track. And the great thing was, all the spill from the “new” band would still be there, all this bleed, so a lot of times on that record, you’re actually hearing two bands playing on each track.
― Taliban! (PBKR), Thursday, 2 September 2021 19:02 (two years ago) link
My parents listened exclusively to classical music when I was a child. (Still the case, actually.) I was familiar only with the instruments of the orchestra and to me, a "bass player" was someone who wore a tuxedo and bowed sedately at what looked like a giant cello. I would have been five or so when the news broke of the death of "Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious". I remember looking in incomprehension at his photo, wondering how this guy, with his sinister leer and bicycle lock necklace, had been allowed to join an orchestra.
― Vast Halo, Thursday, 2 September 2021 20:04 (two years ago) link
Had a stand-up argument with a mate because I refused to believe that this wasn't a Japan track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRk9nwvVH20
― Maresn3st, Thursday, 2 September 2021 20:17 (two years ago) link
in my Fundamentalist days I still listened to secular music cos I hated the Christian music I heard in church but I feared each rock band was secretly mega-Satanic and evil, like there was this secret cabal of bands like Metallica who would drink goat's blood ,but that they were deliberately trying to trick people into thinking they weren't, so that they weren't exposed. this is why I thought Sabbath had Christian lyrics on Master of Reality.
i also took lyrics hyper-literally so I thought Metallica's "Leper Messiah" was about Jesus being a leper.
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Thursday, 2 September 2021 20:18 (two years ago) link
I thought "Maneater" by Hall and Oates was about a cannibal. Scary stuff, thought my mom was weird for happily humming along to it
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 2 September 2021 20:32 (two years ago) link
First time I heard Star Me Kitten by REM, on holiday in France, I thought the devil had possessed the cassette.
― fc_TEFH28mo (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 2 September 2021 20:41 (two years ago) link
My parents listened exclusively to classical music when I was a child.
Mine too, and I had a related misunderstanding when I was maybe seven years old and an older cousin played me a miami bass comp. "I don't get it, where's the bass?"
― swim, Thursday, 2 September 2021 21:07 (two years ago) link
This is a good one.
Being around classical music 90% of the time as a kid, I tended to call songs "pieces" like they were classical music. Nobody corrected me so it just continued. When I was 10 I was called out on it, "why do you keep calling them 'pieces'? They're songs!" It was a struggle to correct this.
― what's fgti up to these days? nothing. she's fake (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, 2 September 2021 21:26 (two years ago) link
Like it was actually a "oh, "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul? I love that piece!" moment that prompted somebody to tell me how ridiculous it sounded
― what's fgti up to these days? nothing. she's fake (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, 2 September 2021 21:27 (two years ago) link
This is why, at most rock concerts, people don't clap between songs. They wait until the band has played everything from one of its albums, and THEN they clap.
― Robert Cray-Cray (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 2 September 2021 21:28 (two years ago) link
I just call everything a song. “That’s my favorite Xenakis song!” “I love Jimmy Lyons’ solo on that Cecil Taylor song.” It’s easier that way.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:00 (two years ago) link
Ugh
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:16 (two years ago) link
It's dumb that it bothers me that people call something a song even though nobody is singing, but it always seems wrong to me
― silverfish, Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:20 (two years ago) link
I may have commented elsewhere on the Taboo-like elegant variation bandstand avoidance of the word “song”: That was a Charlie Parker tune called “Relaxin’ at Camarillo.” This next number blah blah blah…
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:29 (two years ago) link
It's not dumb!
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:39 (two years ago) link
One of the definitions given for "song" is: a musical composition suggestive of a song.I don't really know what to make of that. Is it saying compositions that have similar structure to songs can be called a song even if there's no lyrics or singing?
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:41 (two years ago) link
I think that's what they mean, yes, e.g. Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:43 (two years ago) link
I sort of feel that, but "Sleep Walk" "Rumble" and "Green Onions" etc. are songs in my book.
― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:51 (two years ago) link
I used to want to not call every piece of music a song but felt pretentious using any other word. Perhaps if I was speaking to someone who was musically trained I would.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:54 (two years ago) link
Yeah, iirc those examples basically have strophic song-like structure.xp
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:56 (two years ago) link
I do sometimes give in and refer to instrumental pieces as "songs" when talking to children. Usually not, though.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:57 (two years ago) link
Maybe the definition of the word has drifted over time, but almost everyone alive today would consider Green Onions a song.
― enochroot, Thursday, 2 September 2021 22:59 (two years ago) link
This next one is a new composition of mine entitled “Green Orions.”
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 September 2021 23:04 (two years ago) link
So is this thing mistitled?https://www.sfjazz.org/onthecorner/a-century-of-song-monk-at-100/
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 September 2021 23:08 (two years ago) link
How about these?https://www.shermusic.com/jazz-songbook-series.php
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 September 2021 23:11 (two years ago) link
― Derek and Clive Get the Horn Street (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, 2 September 2021 23:22 (two years ago) link
Lol.Op. cit. 2: Allegro Bugalú
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 September 2021 23:26 (two years ago) link
In my Apple Music library, every audio file is labelled as a song, including recordings of spoken conference presentations, interviews, test recordings of white noise, etc. Clearly the term does get used loosely. I still think there's a non-trivial distinction to be made between instrumental compositions and settings of text to music. Ethan Hein doesn't. The term does seem to get used more loosely wrt jazz lead sheets, perhaps because there is so much of a grounding of the material in blues and Tin Pan Alley songs in that tradition. I usually don't hear that many jazz players refer to "Lester Leaps In" as a "song" per se (vs e.g. "tune") but maybe some do.xps
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 23:28 (two years ago) link
RIght. Lots of jazz guys are sticklers as well, but once in a while you might here "song." I guess there is definitely a distinction especially within those examples you mention in your first sentence.Don't know from Ethan Hein but I see that his new book has a foreward by Adam Neely.
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 September 2021 23:40 (two years ago) link
Ahem, foreword.
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 September 2021 23:41 (two years ago) link
Which led me to this interesting set of discussions, especially the first post: http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/tag/adam-neely/
RIght. Lots of jazz guys are sticklers as well, but once in a while you might here "song."
Mostly you'd just sidestep the question and call it a "chart."
― swim, Thursday, 2 September 2021 23:53 (two years ago) link
It's only a chart if it's written down, though, surely? More generally, it's a "tune" ime.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 September 2021 23:53 (two years ago) link
For sure "chart" comes from the tradition of learning repertoire from Real Books etc, but I've definitely heard it used in the absence of written music. I guess "chart" more or less means a piece of music defined in terms of some melodic material and some chord changes, with the expectation that both are malleable to whatever extent the players agree upon.
― swim, Friday, 3 September 2021 00:03 (two years ago) link
Instrumentals imb
― "Bobby Gillespie" (ft. Heroin) (Tom D.), Friday, 3 September 2021 08:01 (two years ago) link
I cried when I wrote this jawnSue me if I play too long
― Robert Cray-Cray (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 3 September 2021 11:38 (two years ago) link
"Its your brother, Marvin Berry! You know that new sound you've been looking for? Well listen to this composition!!!"
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Friday, 3 September 2021 12:50 (two years ago) link
Marvin didn't even use the word "song" in the original movie, when he put the phone up to Marty's guitar solo!
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 3 September 2021 13:04 (two years ago) link
Anyway, No one is questioning that Steely Dan and Chuck Berry songs are songs but I'm going to turn off the exhaust fan bc its song is too loud.
Neubauten went from being anti music to writing some really nice songs. Possibly at the same time, like.
― Stevolende, Friday, 3 September 2021 13:36 (two years ago) link
When I was a kid my local classic rock station would play "rock blocks" of five songs back to back no commercials, and you could win a prize if you caught them playing less than five songs in a row. I called in once trying to catch them on a technicality by saying Edgar Winter's Frankenstein doesn't have any singing and therefore isn't really a song. "Fuck off, you little shit" was the gist of the response.
― Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Friday, 3 September 2021 13:49 (two years ago) link
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 3 September 2021 14:04 (two years ago) link
Think we have an answer.
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 3 September 2021 14:18 (two years ago) link
when I was in middle school, our choir teacher decided to rant for some reason against the studio trickery that was unnaturally making vocalists sound better than they were. nevermind that our choir director couldn't really even sing herself.
so what she meant was the typical studio trickery, the occasional pitch correction, the smoothing of the vocals, the mixing of many takes, I mean, shit that had been happening since the 50s, and pointing out "if you see these singers like En Vogue live, they don't sound anywhere near as good".
but she didn't elaborate at all. and I understood it to mean that literally all great singing was created in a lab (the studio), that vibrato and melisma were digitally added, and that if you took the average Whitney Houston styled singer out of the studio, they'd actually have a Yoko Ono type voice.
then I got into high school choir and heard one of the seniors do some crazy-assed amazing gospel singing and immediately took the bus back to middle school to yell at my teacher.
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Friday, 3 September 2021 14:34 (two years ago) link
Classic rock was a widely recognized, canonized music-historical period, and not just whatever was popular 20 years prior.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 3 September 2021 17:53 (two years ago) link
By the 80s, though, it had definitely become codified by radio, magazines, books etc?
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 3 September 2021 17:55 (two years ago) link
Not to mention bands and fans as well.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 3 September 2021 17:56 (two years ago) link
I definitely avoid using the word 'song' when talking about instrumental music (or even groove-based music that may have vocals and words, but where that isn't the focus). It just sounds kinda dumb and wrong. Track, tune, piece (also pretentious if not in the classical or jazz-related world), composition, thing, etc.
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 3 September 2021 18:01 (two years ago) link
But I didn't expect that classic rock stations would eventually stop playing Cream and start playing "Cherry Pie" by Warrant (which our classic rock station did just over an hour ago).xp
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 3 September 2021 18:02 (two years ago) link
Ok, yes, although when you thought that was true it WAS, at that time. Like I thought "oldies" stations would play Vera Lynn forever.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 3 September 2021 18:06 (two years ago) link
Yes, these were not ridiculous misconceptions! How could we have known…
― tumblin’ dice outro (morrisp), Friday, 3 September 2021 18:08 (two years ago) link
I mean, as a kid you can't be faulted for thinking the same things that many music business professionals did at the time.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 3 September 2021 18:08 (two years ago) link
"track" always for club, IDM etc
― Citole Country (bendy), Friday, 3 September 2021 18:22 (two years ago) link
i still think of "classic rock" proper as being mostly AOR stuff released between 1964–1981, though i know that differs from what self-described classic rock stations actually play nowadays
― aegis philbin (crüt), Friday, 3 September 2021 18:53 (two years ago) link
The first time I heard the term “classic rock” was in 1986 when a new FM station in Chicago (WCKG) called itself that. I was confused, and soon annoyed: why doesn’t “classic rock” mean Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley? Or Sly and the Family Stone and James Brown? Then they’d play something recent-ish by Journey and back-announce it by saying “It doesn’t have to be old to be a classic!”But I don’t recall anyone saying, if asked, that their favorite music was “classic rock” — it seems like that was strictly a marketing/industry term until relatively recently. It would be like someone declaring “I really love album-oriented rock!” or “I’m super into adult contemporary!” (Which, I dunno, maybe people do/did say that.)
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 3 September 2021 19:06 (two years ago) link
I've definitely heard people say their preferred music is adult contemporary.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 3 September 2021 19:23 (two years ago) link
i thought oldies/older music sounded bad because people didn't know how to play instruments very well back then, and not because recording mechanisms were more primitive
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Friday, 3 September 2021 19:27 (two years ago) link
There's this charming one from Carl Perkins, not realizing Les Paul had invented tape echo, thinking he must be creating the echo through finger picking, so that's just what Perkins figured out how to do.
https://www.all-about-vinylrecords.com/rockabilly-guitar-licks.html
― Citole Country (bendy), Friday, 3 September 2021 19:39 (two years ago) link
But I don’t recall anyone saying, if asked, that their favorite music was “classic rock” — it seems like that was strictly a marketing/industry term until relatively recently. It would be like someone declaring “I really love album-oriented rock!” or “I’m super into adult contemporary!” (Which, I dunno, maybe people do/did say that.)
I definitely went through a phase around ages 12-16 where I would have said "classic rock" was one of my favorite genres of music, as I was just diving headfirst into Zeppelin, the Who, Hendrix, Floyd, etc. at that time and discovering that music for the first time (this would have been in the mid-90s). As a proud young rockist, I thought of my love of classic rock in direct opposition to contemporary pop music. At some point I very explicitly stopped listening to the Top 40 FM station and switched to the classic rock one; I think in the era when people listened to terrestrial radio a lot more, you might've been more likely to define your tastes using the terminology that the commercial stations would feed you. I started coming back around to hip hop around age 16, and I guess pop at some point after that.
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Friday, 3 September 2021 19:52 (two years ago) link
it’s like the classic rock poll never happened. tears.
― brimstead, Friday, 3 September 2021 19:53 (two years ago) link
It's not as if "pop" is really a genre anyway, as much as a radio format. I guess some people will say they listen to "pop" (or "Top 40," maybe in older times)... I've heard "classic rock" too.
― tumblin’ dice outro (morrisp), Friday, 3 September 2021 20:00 (two years ago) link
link to the classic rock poll? don't think i've ever seen it. however, one of my gateways into ILM/ILX was the thread where Dr Casino listened to all manner of classic rock mainstays that he had not knowingly heard - I think maybe it was a spinoff of that poll
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Friday, 3 September 2021 21:57 (two years ago) link
CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL: THE RESULTS
― visiting, Friday, 3 September 2021 22:15 (two years ago) link
CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL parking lot tailgate pre-party -- nominations, discussions, parameters, etc.CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL voting thread -- deadline July 15 -- VOTING CLOSED
― visiting, Friday, 3 September 2021 22:18 (two years ago) link
thx!
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Saturday, 4 September 2021 03:23 (two years ago) link
As a young-un I had assumed that the theme songs for the sit-coms of the day were always sung by the show's stars, i.e. in my mind Cindy Williams sang the "Laverne & Shirley" theme song, while it was John Ritter imploring us to come-a knock on his door at the beginning of "Three's Company." And so on. It made sense to me since the songs were written in the voice of the characters, if not voiced by them.
― henry s, Saturday, 4 September 2021 12:53 (two years ago) link
I think I got stuck with a similar notion that it took a while to shake.I think there are a couple that do exist but yeah did seem to get that feeling elsewhere.Am I remembering right that Minder is Dennis Waterman?
― Stevolende, Saturday, 4 September 2021 13:10 (two years ago) link
The "All in the Family" theme was actually sung by Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton, though, right?
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Saturday, 4 September 2021 13:16 (two years ago) link
^that is correct, could be that was the reason I felt all other sit-coms followed suit.
― henry s, Saturday, 4 September 2021 13:22 (two years ago) link
There's an urban legend that Richard Sanders (Les Nessman) sang the WKRP theme.
― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 4 September 2021 13:23 (two years ago) link
Am I remembering right that Minder is Dennis Waterman?
Yes.Hence the (overdone) Little Britain sketch about him insisting on singing (and writing) the theme tune for whatever TV series he appears in.
― How does Spock's brain come into this? (Tom D.), Saturday, 4 September 2021 13:29 (two years ago) link
Linda Lavin sang the theme to Alice, so that's another one from that period. Funnily enough the theme to The Jeffersons was sung by a cast member of Good Times, Ja'Net DuBois.
― Josefa, Saturday, 4 September 2021 13:40 (two years ago) link
I’m certain there’s a thread specifically for this but when I was a little kid I was certain that Spiral Staircase’s “I Love You More Today..” and Todd’s “Hello It’s Me” and “I Saw the Light” we’re sung by women doing contralto(??)
― caddy lac brougham? (will), Saturday, 4 September 2021 13:41 (two years ago) link
Brady Bunch is another one where cast sang theme song
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Saturday, 4 September 2021 15:00 (two years ago) link
Pretty sure I thought it was Woody singing the Cheers theme when I was a kid
― Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Saturday, 4 September 2021 15:32 (two years ago) link
^A friend of mine insisted that the vintage photos at the opening of Cheers were “baby pictures“ of the cast members.Interestingly, prolific sitcom themesmith Alan Thicke neither wrote nor sung the Growing Pains theme (you can hear him on the Diff'rent Strokes theme, tho).
― tumblin’ dice outro (morrisp), Saturday, 4 September 2021 15:36 (two years ago) link
Hence the (overdone) Little Britain sketch about him insisting on singing (and writing) the theme tune for whatever TV series he appears in.Waterman also sang the theme tunes for New Tricks, On the Up, and Stay Lucky. He did not write any of them, though: the arch-feminists and definitely not lazy writers behind Little Britain just saw his wife’s credit for lyrics on the first one and stopped there.
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Saturday, 4 September 2021 15:57 (two years ago) link
I was so fascinated by the Cheers intro as a kid
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 4 September 2021 16:55 (two years ago) link
i wrote a parody when i was like 9 or 10, i don't remember most of it but it started
"staying alive in a bar today takes all the brawn ya got"
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Saturday, 4 September 2021 16:57 (two years ago) link
I think when I was a kid I thought that every TV theme song had a longer full length version with multiple verses and stuff
― brimstead, Saturday, 4 September 2021 16:58 (two years ago) link
After I got over the whole "cast members always sing the theme songs" thing, I thought that the Cheers theme was sung by Gilbert O'Sullivan.
― henry s, Saturday, 4 September 2021 17:17 (two years ago) link
Loool!
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 4 September 2021 17:55 (two years ago) link
Has anyone posted yet one of the biggest of all: that session men were hacks?
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 4 September 2021 19:31 (two years ago) link
aww, Lavator, i'm touched that the Dr. Casino listening thread (credit to fact checking cuz) was an ilx gateway for you! good to know it had a good impact. it's funny because i was already gonna respond to your post before that about getting into classic rock as a teen in the mid 90s, our stories are similar!
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 4 September 2021 19:44 (two years ago) link
I always figured the opposite - that you couldn't just be called in to nail a take of whatever unless you were a real pro who had really put in your time with the method books. The people you could be called in to replace in the studio might be hacks, though.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Saturday, 4 September 2021 19:51 (two years ago) link
I think I did have the misconception that this was, like, a job that you could apply for and get outside of three or four big cities.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Saturday, 4 September 2021 19:55 (two years ago) link
Yeah, I thought they were all mid-level hired hands who didn’t give a fuck about what they were playing.
― mike t-diva, Saturday, 4 September 2021 20:36 (two years ago) link
I thought the bass on sgt pepper was played by Ringo on a series of tuned bass drums. I was 5.
― 29 facepalms, Saturday, 4 September 2021 20:39 (two years ago) link
_Has anyone posted yet one of the biggest of all: that session men were hacks?_I always figured the opposite - that you couldn't just be called in to nail a take of whatever unless you were a real pro who had really put in your time with the method books. The people you could be called in to replace in the studio might be hacks, though.
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 4 September 2021 20:53 (two years ago) link
Actually I have a passing acquaintance with one of the NYC Brill Building session men. I sometimes bug him with fanboy questions, and sometimes he even answers. I sometimes feel self-conscious about this but then again, James Redd is gonna James Redd.
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 4 September 2021 20:55 (two years ago) link
That guy is kind of one of my heroes for various reasons. I probably posted about him here before but am a little self-conscious about going into further detail now.
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 4 September 2021 20:59 (two years ago) link
i was disappointed that the 'electric guitar' patch on my keyboard did not sound like a guitar solo
― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Saturday, 4 September 2021 21:12 (two years ago) link
Ha!
― Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 4 September 2021 21:16 (two years ago) link
lol. is any set of standard keyboard sounds more universally disappointing?
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 4 September 2021 21:21 (two years ago) link
I thought the bass on sgt pepper was played by Ringo on a series of tuned bass drums.
This would have been really cool
― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Saturday, 4 September 2021 21:23 (two years ago) link
Still laughing about the sand trombone
― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Saturday, 4 September 2021 21:27 (two years ago) link
yeah that's so excellent
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 4 September 2021 21:27 (two years ago) link
sand_trombone.wav
i was disappointed that the 'electric guitar' patch on my keyboard did not sound like a guitar solo― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Saturday, September 4, 2021 4:12 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Saturday, September 4, 2021 4:12 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
my yamaha midi keyboard led me to believe that "distortion guitar" and "overdrive guitar" were specific kinds of guitars
― aegis philbin (crüt), Saturday, 4 September 2021 21:28 (two years ago) link
I used to think the purpose of the bass drum was to display the band’s logo. I thought the sound of the bass drum actually came from the floor tom, that is, a drummer would play the hi-hat with their left hand, and alternate between the snare and floor tom with their right. I didn’t know there was a foot pedal behind the bass drum. (I was maybe six or seven. This was pre-MTV, and I had never seen someone play the drums, either in person or on film.)
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Saturday, 4 September 2021 21:42 (two years ago) link
if you'll recall the "Once in a Lifetime" video, there are four copies of David Byrne in the background doing various moves, but i didn't know about video trickery when i was little so i thought those were the other four members of the band doing dances that were somehow perfectly in sync, which i thought was really impressive
― orifex, Saturday, 4 September 2021 21:56 (two years ago) link
i've been rifling through my memories all day trying to think of some of these and generally coming up short. as a kid i don't think i really invested a lot of imagination into how music was made or what the musicians were like, i just sort of took the songs as things that were around to sing along to. i didn't even have a lot of curiosity about Raffi. so i think most of my ridiculously incorrect beliefs were just in the category of getting lyrics wildly, impossibly wrong and accepting it because it didn't occur to me that lyrics would typically make sense or use real words. e.g. on "Say Say Say" : Standin' hereBaptizin' all my tearsBaby ThuliousYou know I'm cryin', ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh!as a teen i probably had a share of more pedestrian misconceptions that i've now forgotten. definitely the whole "recording live as a band in the studio" thing. i'm still vague on whether and to what extent that's still a thing. like don't some bands do at least the instrumental performance together and only do the vocals as separate overdubs? right? dunno. but probably most of my wrongheaded notions were artist-specific, like being introduced to Beck via the "Where It's At" video, and having to be talked out of the notion that he should be primarily categorized as a "rapper."
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 4 September 2021 22:25 (two years ago) link
For Hail to the Thief, the five members of Radiohead, along with longtime producer and collaborator Nigel Godrich, entered Hollywood's Ocean Way Recording studios with a plan to finish the record relatively quickly and without much fuss. Six weeks later, they emerged with an album mostly recorded live, with minimal overdubs and a return to the guitars that helped spark their second album (and first classic) in 1995, The Bends.
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/radiohead-hail-to-the-thief/
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Saturday, 4 September 2021 22:49 (two years ago) link
My earliest memory of watching Top of the Pops was an episode playing out with an Abba song (Waterloo?), accompanied by the studio audience bopping away to a playback of the finely-crafted Swedish hitmakers. In my naivete I assumed the dancers were actually the band, and that Abba had about 30 people in them. Not sure how long that misconception lasted, probably until the "back-to-back" video was made.
― john landis as man being smashed into window (uncredited) (Matt #2), Saturday, 4 September 2021 23:56 (two years ago) link
I guess the way i felt about the session cats was something like the jobbers in pro wrestling, they just didn't have cool nicknames and colorful costumes
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Sunday, 5 September 2021 05:51 (two years ago) link
Until embarrassingly recently I had it in my head that Charles Hayward (of This Heat, Camberwell Now and numerous other projects) and Charles Hazlewood (conductor, composer and radio presenter) were the same person. Even now when someone mentions Hayward, I picture Hazlewood automatically. I didn't even have the excuse of being a stupid kid either, so goodness knows where it came from.
― "Spaghetti" Thompson (Pheeel), Monday, 6 September 2021 10:40 (two years ago) link
Very into British beat records as a kid, and would read the band lineups that would mention Roger Daltery or Keith Relf on “vocals, harp” and listen closely for those Joanna Newsom sparkles.
― Citole Country (bendy), Monday, 6 September 2021 14:02 (two years ago) link
I assumed all musicians were always dressed immaculately, a drink in hand, looking out the floor to ceiling windows of their penthouse suite
This was how I used to imagine ILX posters.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 6 September 2021 14:40 (two years ago) link
i imagine ILXors wearing bibs and covered in their own filth
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 September 2021 15:23 (two years ago) link
I think of both artists and ILXors as burnt out solitary average joes thinking a lot about the world and their career and living in front of their computers in their basement, but maybe that's uncharitable
― Nabozo, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 06:11 (two years ago) link
I was very young and had no idea what punk sounded like but I saw pictures of The Clash and thought I had an idea.
"Rock the Casbah" was huge (which means I was around 13 at the time which is about right; I only heard classic rock and disco on the NYC radio stations I listened to) but I thought there was no way that was "punk" based on those pictures and the reputation. So I convinced myself that it must have been a cover. Now, whether this meant it was The Clash doing a cover or someone covering The Clash, I don't recall.
― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 07:27 (two years ago) link
Haha, yeah, I don't recall any punk rock getting commercial airplay before Green Day (unless you count Nirvana) so ime most people were confused about what it was, if they thought of it at all. From reading, I knew Billy Idol had been in a punk band and that the Clash were supposed to be a punk band ("Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go" did get play) so ... maybe it had something to do with those? Except they didn't sound that different from other 80s pop/rock so it was still confusing. I knew it was supposed to be stripped-down and simple rock n roll so ... maybe it was a bit like George Thorogood? That could sort of fit with "Should I Stay..." When I first heard It's a Shame About Ray, I figured it was probably a punk album.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 11:57 (two years ago) link
Friend of mine in college thought that "Rock The Casbah" was about blowjobs, as she heard the chorus as "Cheree, she don't like it..."
― henry s, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:04 (two years ago) link
flaming lips did this on "waitin for a superman" and it kinda sucked. don't know whether it was actual separate bass drums or just edited, or completely synthetic, or what though
― ufo, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:06 (two years ago) link
My partner has a "punk mix" tape made by an older cousin in the 80s that mostly consists of stuff like Cowboy Junkies and Edie Brickell. Also "Some Kind of Wonderful".xps
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:12 (two years ago) link
It was definitely confusing to read the rock history books where writers were saying that punk rock killed off the old dinosaurs, while I was hearing Zep, Floyd, and Rush daily on the radio and was still trying to figure out what punk even was.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:22 (two years ago) link
“I Wanna Be Sedated” got wider airplay and was played at parties etc. but yeah you wouldn’t really hear too much punk per se outside of college radio and certain corners of New Wave stations. Feel like London Calling was pretty big though too.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:22 (two years ago) link
Although the sound of London Calling was not really punk at that point of course. Still, it was apparently a Top Ten album in the UK.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:27 (two years ago) link
There were also a few notorious punk rock episodes of certain TV shows.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:31 (two years ago) link
Pumk bands were in the charts all the time in the UK, and not just the Clash and the Sex Pistols but the UK Subs, the Exploited etc.
― How does Spock's brain come into this? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:32 (two years ago) link
Sham 69 had three Top 10 singles.
― How does Spock's brain come into this? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:33 (two years ago) link
Sid Vicious was in the London Symphony Orchestra or something!
― Citole Country (bendy), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:45 (two years ago) link
tom at FT picks up this UK "punk in the charts" thread in a few places i think - his "Rat Trap" review comes to mind: http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/08/the-boomtown-rats-rat-trap/also, not punk-specific, but a useful summation of some of the spirit of this thread: "UB40, I was aware, made reggae. Therefore reggae sounded like what UB40 made. I can’t have been the only one who made this logical mis-step, and I expect I wasn’t the only one who spent a decade-plus assuming they disliked reggae because of it."
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:51 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmJxxnemxmw
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:52 (two years ago) link
I remember in 1979 when Blondie finally started to have hits in the US a friend telling me that Debbie Harry used to be a punk rocker, which he communicated in a tone as if he were saying she used to be a prostitute. I only knew about punk that it was outrageous and probably filthy. (It was likely that same year that another friend brought home some Ramones records and I finally could put a sound to the word punk, which then struck me as cartoonish rather than shocking). But yeah, you didn't hear straight up punk on US rock radio, and I was surprised to learn later that lots of punk records were big chart hits in the UK (x-post to Tom).
― Josefa, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:52 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k37XXZL1YY
That Quincy episode apparently has a friend of ILX0r suzy in the cast.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:53 (two years ago) link
UK Subs had six Top 40 singles!
― How does Spock's brain come into this? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:54 (two years ago) link
So yeah in the US it was contained, but in the UK you could hear regularly it on the radio as Tom D says, and you would see punks down at the pub and no one would blink an eye, as my friend pointed out when Local Hero came out.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:56 (two years ago) link
The local classic rock station does play "London Calling" and the Clash's cover of "I Fought the Law" now but they've only done so in recent years. We didn't have a new wave/alternative/modern rock station until the late 90s, though you obv heard stuff like the Cars and Police and REM and MuchMusic played The Cure, Siouxsie, etc. The two campus stations had shows devoted to Indian music, the Haitian community, early jazz, avant-garde electronics, BBC news, etc. They did have punk shows but I wasn't listening as a kid. I might have heard "I Wanna Be Sedated" once as a kid and thought of it as a goofy novelty. Not sure it was getting played at all in the "just say no" era, though.xps Haha, I was thinking of adding "before Tom D: 'in North America'" but decided against it.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 12:57 (two years ago) link
For a while, I thought maybe punk had killed off 'dinosaur rock' in some esoteric way that only rock critics were sophisticated enough to understand; at some point, I realized they were probably just British.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 13:04 (two years ago) link
I remember hearing the Clash's "I Fought the Law" quite often but almost nothing else off that album unless I played it myself at home.I believe many US critics said the same thing.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 13:04 (two years ago) link
I remember chortling at all that The Year Punk Broke stuff and Sonic Youth, or whoever, going on about punk rock in 1988, when the Anti-Nowhere League and the Exploited had been on Top of the Pops over here!
― How does Spock's brain come into this? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 13:10 (two years ago) link
xp Yeah I had thought that "Train in Vain" was the first Clash record I ever heard (meaning was played on US radio), but now you mention it I think "I Fought the Law" preceded it by a few months. I don't think the "London Calling" title track was played initially, only years later.
― Josefa, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 13:14 (two years ago) link
Yeah, but I think that Punk Broke title is meant slightly ironically.(xp)Our old friend Ρεμπετολογια had a punk rock radio show in Canada in the mid-70s, but he had also been in London, England for a while before that, it seems.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 13:15 (two years ago) link
Sonic Youth were absolutely beeing cheeky with "The Year Punk Broke" etc, since they knew full well the US was way behind on punk
― Josefa, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 13:17 (two years ago) link
When his printed bylines started appearing in the NME, I thought that ILM's mark s had previously been in The Pop Group and Rip Rig & Panic. But that was Gareth Sager, who shares three letters of his surname with mark s.
― mike t-diva, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 13:22 (two years ago) link
This is interesting:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Calling_(song)
"London Calling" was released as the only single from the album in the UK and reached No. 11 in the charts in January 1980,[4] becoming at once the band's highest charting single until "Should I Stay or Should I Go" hit No. 1 ten years later. The song did not make the US charts, as "Train in Vain" was released as a single and broke the band in the US, reaching No. 23 on the pop charts.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 13:29 (two years ago) link
Punk rock was considered corny as hell in the UK by the time all these US bands washed up on our shores blithering on about it.
― How does Spock's brain come into this? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 13:35 (two years ago) link
The year punk blithered and died.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 14:12 (two years ago) link
I remember hearing the Clash when "Rock the Casbah" was an actual Top Forty hit in the US (and liking it), but nothing else, on the radio anyway.
I also remember one character in a Stephen King book saying to another, "You've gotta hear this band the Ramones — they're hilarious." I didn't actually hear the Ramones until maybe...1985? I bought Leave Home and then a couple of years later I bought the Ramones Mania compilation and eventually got around to the first two albums.
I had a slightly older friend whose slightly older brother was into punk in the early 80s, though, so I heard Black Flag and Flipper and Dead Kennedys by around 1983. That same friend insisted that Motörhead were the only metal band worth listening to, so I bought No Remorse (which was new, so this would have been 1984) even though I was already listening to Judas Priest.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 14:23 (two years ago) link
Suicidal Tendencies and DRI got played on MuchMusic's metal show but I just thought they were metal (which they were by then).
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 14:30 (two years ago) link
My oldest brother only listened to Jethro Tull, but his girlfriend had Ramones records (probably more inspired more by fun novelty than punk orthodoxy). My middle brother listened to Rush and Led Zeppelin, but also Sex Pistols, Clash, PiL and Siouxsie. So reading a few years later that fans of these artists were supposed to be at war with each other was an incorrect belief I had to question.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 14:42 (two years ago) link
https://www.tshirtsonscreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/theyoungonesrushtshirt-e1450118659710-1024x598.jpg
Well I never!
― Josefa, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 14:58 (two years ago) link
I recall being in a record store around the time the Sex Pistols album came out, and the guys that worked there slapped it on the turntable and proceeded to ridicule it for its "amateurism." I thought it sounded pretty good, not that different from the hard rock I was into at the time (Alice Cooper, Blue Oyster Cult and Bowie, primarily.) Didn't get where they were coming from.
― henry s, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 14:58 (two years ago) link
I was thinking about Xmas '79 the other day... how Pink Floyd seemed like a bunch of old geezers (my brother had had WYWH on cassette, and I associated that with the tail end of his ELP prog phase, years before), like 50-something at least, and how shocking it was to discover that Dave Gilmour was younger than Debbie Harry! I also thought of Bryan Ferry as much older than, say, McCartney or Bowie.
― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 15:01 (two years ago) link
I can't recall ever not knowing "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go." Both were played on normal pop radio in St. Louis when I was in junior high school, 1983ish. But I doubt I heard "London Calling" or "Train in Vain" until high school, and wouldn't have heard (for example) "Guns of Brixton" until college.
v surprised to hear that "Should I Stay or Should I Go" was a chart hit in 1990(?), apparently it was in a commercial?
My father was into the Ramones and New York Dolls, so I must have heard those things but they didn't leave an impression on me. I considered myself a New Wave kid. Even when I moved to DC, punk manifested itself more as a group of fashion choices than a music genre. "Punks" were people who went to Commander Salamander and Smash for purple temporary hair dye and shirts made of safety pins, plaid miniskirts, Docs, etc. You could have a Dead Kennedys pin on your backpack, and it read as "edgy," but no one in my personal orbit connected it to owning or listening to music.
― Richard Marxist (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 15:12 (two years ago) link
I dressed up as a punk for Halloween in 1st or 2nd grade. Think I actually repeated the costume the next year or year after. I have no idea how I was even aware of what a punk was. Def hadn't heard actual punk music.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 15:13 (two years ago) link
The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite did a report on the Sex Pistols American tour in early '78, so probably loads of middle-aged and older Americans were exposed to punk at the same time or before younger Americans were.
― Josefa, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 15:19 (two years ago) link
I mean people knew what it was, but it didn't get played on the radio, outside from niche shows on college or New Wave stations as mentioned above. Actually I remember one week one of the big AM Top Forty stations announced they were doing as a service by playing one Punk song per evening. Feel like I managed to hear two or three: The Stranglers, "Hanging Around"The Ramones, "Rockaway Beach"The Sex Pistols, "Pretty Vacant"(maybe for the latter he said "I can't say their name")
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 16:07 (two years ago) link
wait, I thought British people copied punk from Dee Dee Ramone?
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:06 (two years ago) link
Yeah, sort of.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:10 (two years ago) link
But they made it their own!
Sure but it was easier for them to do so bc the Ramones had top 40 hits in the UK and not in the US.xps
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:11 (two years ago) link
Also James Redd otm.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:12 (two years ago) link
Really the way I experienced it is that punk became post-punk New Wave etc so soon and those other, um, genres outlived and outlasted punk for quite a while, so I only ever heard the initial blast of punk - from a year before!- as some kind of underplayed oldies- the same way I heard a lot of classic rock before I heard some of the deeper 50s stuff.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:14 (two years ago) link
Yeah the caveat in this whole argument (apologies for the digression) is that, even setting aside the early NYC bands, LA and SF already had their own punk scenes in 1977, so we’re not talking about coastal hipsters here but about the mass US culture where punk was kind of a shadowy, negligible presence.
― Josefa, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:15 (two years ago) link
(but seriously tho) afaict extent of the way punk "happened" on North American rock radio was that a punk element infiltrated hard rock and metal (van Halen, Guns N Roses, etc). And even the Nirvana and Green Day wave of punk is basically a version of this.
The artier side of punk only made it over here as new wave, i think.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:17 (two years ago) link
Just checking the release dates of Never Mind the Bollocks and This Year's Model, and maybe I'm amazed or maybe I am not at how closely one followed on the heels of the other.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:25 (two years ago) link
I def felt, as a kid who liked classic rock and "oldies" and prog etc in the mid 90's, that there was a sense the Nirvana and Green Day wave of punk had killed off the bloated old dinosaurs, yeah. The few bands acceptable to both parties were on the hard rock-metal spectrum, like GNR or Metallica.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:26 (two years ago) link
I don't know in what way they were killed off, though? You hear "Aqualung" less than you used to but I think that has more to do with the classic rock format updating itself in subsequent years rather than something that happened in response to Nirvana or Green Day. (I was going to say "Roundabout" too but that's become a meme. It has 20M more Spotify plays than "Anarchy in the UK".) Aerosmith and Eric Clapton were still among the biggest artists of the 90s, Pink Floyd's Division Bell tour was huge, "Stairway" and "Hotel California" were still topping the classic rock station's 'greatest songs' lists, and then we got OK Computer a couple of years later.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:52 (two years ago) link
Smashing Pumpkins, NIN, and Soundgarden were all earnestly paying tribute to 'dinosaur' bands.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:54 (two years ago) link
it's all tidy rock-crit narrative and not worth fussing over TOO much..... but could there be a case that more broadly, punk and new wave didn't kill off the towering monumental AOR bands, but DID maybe kind of gradually change the sound/style of the average local band, average bar band? like, not that there was a national ban on chooglin' or white blues imitation, but maybe that more and more bands were trying to sound more like The Cars than like Grand Funk. iow it's more like local 60s garage-rock displacing Elvis and Frankie Valli wannabes than a mass deletion of the big names...? and in terms of chart action you'd find it in Hall and Oates updating their sound, Huey Lewis scoring big, etc., not in more aggressive stuff tearing up the airwaves (until GnR and then Nirvana maybe)... idk.
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 18:07 (two years ago) link
Yes, my theory of grunge rock is that people around my age (born late ‘60s) who were schooled on rock as adolescents via ‘70s bands like Kiss, Cheap Trick, BOC, Aerosmith, perhaps Sabbath, Zeppelin… larer discovered punk in high school, very likely playing in a punk band at that time and adopting a punk philosophy… and then at some point post-high school had the epiphany that those old school hard rock bands were actually kind of good, and that one could meld the punk rock attitude and punk principles with the chops and weightiness of those classic ‘70s bands. And grunge rock was that melding.
― Josefa, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 18:15 (two years ago) link
not that there was a national ban on chooglin'
If chooglin' is wrong, I don't wanna be right.
― Richard Marxist (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 18:18 (two years ago) link
That photo above of Vyvyan jogged my memory - he was probably my first impression of whatever "punk" was (when The Young Ones started running on MTV in 85/86), until I started seeing/hearing whatever punk/post-punk Dave Kendall would dredge up on 120 Minutes a year or two later.
― city worker, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 18:50 (two years ago) link
I used to think that making music was super difficult and virtually impossible for a person like me (even in spite of the punk "anyone can do it" mentality + riot grrrl emerging during my most formative years) but as it turns out, that is not so.
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 20:04 (two years ago) link
I mean, I was into punk/hardcore/noise-rock in the mid-90s but everyone involved with it thought of it as an underground thing vs behemoths like Aerosmith that dominated the airwaves.xp
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 20:08 (two years ago) link
I was watching Repo Man from an early age, so I had a pretty good idea of what at least that slice of punk culture & music was about (not to pat myself on the back, just adding my experience). Plus, like someone else above, I'm sure I saw punks in Georgetown (D.C.), near where we lived.
― tumblin’ dice outro (morrisp), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 20:16 (two years ago) link
Until I was well into my college years, I assumed that artistic merit was sorta inversely proportional to popularity. Like all these obscure indie/punk bands that people had buttoned to their jean jacket were inherently better than the top 40 I was listening to, but my ear just wasn't discerning/mature enough yet. I didn't really occur to me that they might be obscure because they were bad, or that they might be lo-fi because no one wanted to advance them any money to record their songs properly.
If I'm honest, I still haven't completely shaken off this prejudice.
― enochroot, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 21:28 (two years ago) link
Kelefa Sanneh personal history piece slots nicely into this derail
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-education-of-a-part-time-punk
Growing up in the New England countryside, punk was a definately a thing, but it was an inner suburb/urban thing. Punk got to me via a state collage radio station, early-80s high school. I was the only kid making a Clash tshirt in the printshop class - much easier than making a one-pass silkscreen out of a Journey cover, as I saw a classmate struggle with. Jocks and burnouts knew about it, but it wasn't present. The quarterback was in my guitar class, and he'd heard a Fear song, but didn't know any more than that, but thought the bile was hilarious. He taught me how to play Misty Mountain Hop. My clique could get a ride to a train to get into the subway into Boston, and that's how we got the records and eventually, the shows.
― Citole Country (bendy), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 21:32 (two years ago) link
At this point maybe the use of the word “punk” is kind of like the use of the word “surreal”: does it refer to a specific, somewhat brief moment in time or does it refer to all kinds of other stuff that came afterward and was somehow inspired by the original thing?
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 21:49 (two years ago) link
When graphic equalisers became fashionable in the early 80s I thought that they were used to isolate the different instruments on a track so you could only hear the bass guitar or drums or whatever.
― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 22:04 (two years ago) link
Haha so did I. I was SO disappointed to find this wasn’t the case.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 22:22 (two years ago) link
I know this is just a misheard lyric, but to me it transcends that because I had the title of the song wrong in my head for years. When the song Cult of Personality came out (I was 10), I somehow took it in as “Cultive Personality”. It never came up in conversation, so I was never corrected, and somehow I never saw the actual song title in print. The mishearing stuck with me, unquestioned, until my middle teens when I “rediscovered” Living Colour and read the lyrics. It took some serious recalibration to come to terms with the actual title/lyric and the fact that I had had it wrong for so long.
― epistantophus, Wednesday, 8 September 2021 02:41 (two years ago) link
For at least a few months I thought it was "pumped-up personality".
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, 8 September 2021 03:22 (two years ago) link
Well, this isn't music related but I used to think Timbuktu, Abu Dhabi and Walla Walla, Washington were made up place names.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 8 September 2021 06:47 (two years ago) link
FP'd you for racism
(ie not including Woop Woop, Woy Woy, or Wagga Wagga)
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Wednesday, 8 September 2021 06:50 (two years ago) link
i'm MENA fwiw and p sure my mom still thinks Timbuktu is not a real place
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 8 September 2021 06:56 (two years ago) link
I have a vague recollection of thinking that electric guitars weren't real guitars, you just plugged them in and they would play themselves and guitarists were just pretending to play them during concerts (I guess electric to me meant that it was somehow all automated). This was when I was probably 5 or 6.
― silverfish, Wednesday, 8 September 2021 18:26 (two years ago) link
I thought it was standard practice to include not just lyrics but guitar chords in your CD inlays, like on Blur's Parklife and was disappointed to realise this was just Blur. More bands should have done this
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Wednesday, 8 September 2021 22:17 (two years ago) link
Complete notated transcriptions or gtfo
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Wednesday, 8 September 2021 22:55 (two years ago) link
Otm
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 8 September 2021 22:59 (two years ago) link
I thought you could just nail a wire into an acoustic guitar then nail the other end into a stereo speaker to make it electric
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 8 September 2021 23:52 (two years ago) link
I thought it was standard practice to include not just lyrics but guitar chords in your CD inlays, like on Blur's Parklife and was disappointed to realise this was just Blur. More bands should have done this.― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin)
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin)
I wish.
― enochroot, Thursday, 9 September 2021 01:40 (two years ago) link
Not on the US CD. No lyrics or chords.
― warsaw303, Thursday, 9 September 2021 01:45 (two years ago) link
We were strumming alongTo Beetlebum
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 9 September 2021 01:53 (two years ago) link
I thought John Cale and JJ Cale were the same person
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 9 September 2021 02:28 (two years ago) link
There is an extremely niche gimmick cover band concept somewhere in there
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 9 September 2021 03:02 (two years ago) link
JJ Cale J
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 9 September 2021 12:22 (two years ago) link
A Child's Cocaine Christmas in Queens
― henry s, Thursday, 9 September 2021 12:41 (two years ago) link
I thought, when listening to Sting and having little other pop music to compare it with, that Sting had this really clever technique of coming up with a catchy contrasting section of his songs. I knew about sonata form, but not verse/chorus.
― raven, Thursday, 9 September 2021 12:59 (two years ago) link
I once thought Rick Grech was somehow connected to Gretsch guitars and/or Gretsch drums.
― Richard Marxist (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 9 September 2021 13:03 (two years ago) link
Wait, he wasn’t?
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 September 2021 13:37 (two years ago) link
For a brief period when I was about 8, I thought guitar solos were played on special instruments called "air guitars."
― obvious, Thursday, 9 September 2021 14:34 (two years ago) link
oooh that's a good one, I didn't think that per se, but definitely heard the expression "air guitar" and thought it was an instrument for a number of years before I understood what it meant
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Thursday, 9 September 2021 14:43 (two years ago) link
Me too
― Alba, Thursday, 9 September 2021 15:02 (two years ago) link
No lie, I thought the "air guitar" was specifically the talk box guitar that Peter Frampton used. You blew air into the tube to make it work, hence "air guitar".
― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 9 September 2021 15:04 (two years ago) link
Did your elementary schools not have air band competitions?
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Thursday, 9 September 2021 15:08 (two years ago) link
Nope, but I still learned how incorrect I was in middle school.
― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 9 September 2021 15:10 (two years ago) link
― henry s
(Over 'Venus in Furs') "He's had quite a strange career, he also wrote 'Cocaine', the Eric Clapton song..."
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 9 September 2021 15:15 (two years ago) link
When I was maybe 10, I heard the son of one of my parents' friends play bass at their house. He played the breakdown from Metallica's Orion and I was absolutely blown away. I stewed over it for a month or two before deciding to make a big announcement to my dad: "I want to play bass! Do you know what bass guitar sounds like? I've got a great song right here." And I proceed to play a cassette of Guns 'n' Roses Sweet Child of Mine. Cue Slash's intro lick: "You hear that? THAT'S bass guitar!" "That's not bass guitar," says dad, to my immediate confusion and embarrassment. A few seconds later the rest of the band kicks in, along with Duff McKagan's equally iconic bassline. "THAT'S bass guitar."
I think that there are certain melodic similarities between the Orion bass line and the SCOM intro and maybe I got confused there. Or maybe it had something to do with Slash's tone.
Anyway, my dad's little brother had played bass in a rock band during high school and college, so I was not going to be fooling him! Lesson much appreciated, dad.
― peace, man, Thursday, 9 September 2021 15:18 (two years ago) link
It also didn't help that I listened to most music on a cheap little boombox, so I didn't hear much of the bass frequencies anyway. During the incident above, I had brought my tape downstairs to dad's larger stereo system.
― peace, man, Thursday, 9 September 2021 15:21 (two years ago) link
Hey, take it over to bass guitar through a guitar amp? and other questions from an ignorant beginner
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 September 2021 15:32 (two years ago) link
but this amp melts FACES, dood
― Richard Marxist (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 9 September 2021 15:38 (two years ago) link
omg that whole contretemps was fifteen years ago.
it is older than my oldest child
― Richard Marxist (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 9 September 2021 15:54 (two years ago) link
i thought when a band was named after a member of the band (as opposed to a solo artist) that the guy was an asshole
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Thursday, 9 September 2021 22:44 (two years ago) link
I still think that, mostly.
― emil.y, Thursday, 9 September 2021 23:10 (two years ago) link
There must be a note that feels better than any other to end a song or piece on. I have to test them on the piano, both singly, and with simple tunes.
**time passes**
It's probably E. A tune should preferably end on an E.
― anatol_merklich, Friday, 10 September 2021 00:28 (two years ago) link
I thought electric guitars were mains powered via the lead, I think based on hearing a story about a guitarist being electrocuted onstage because it rained or something
― bovarism, Friday, 10 September 2021 19:27 (two years ago) link
^^^ seems almost certain that i thought this at some point
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Friday, 10 September 2021 19:48 (two years ago) link
I thought, when listening to Sting and having little other pop music to compare it with, that Sting had this really clever technique of coming up with a catchy contrasting section of his songs. I knew about sonata form, but not verse/chorus.― raven, Thursday, 9 September 2021 13:59
This is staggering.
― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Friday, 10 September 2021 19:54 (two years ago) link
I was also told the story about the Stone the Crows guy getting zapped on stage and was prang about playing outside for years
― (the one with 3 L's) (Willl), Friday, 10 September 2021 20:16 (two years ago) link
Raven, where did you grow up that you knew sonata form before hearing any verse-chorus songs like "Jingle Bells" or "Oh Susanna"?
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Friday, 10 September 2021 21:24 (two years ago) link
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 10 September 2021 21:40 (two years ago) link
https://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/blog/top-5-most-shocking-deaths-the-show-wont-go-on/
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 10 September 2021 21:50 (two years ago) link
I could have sworn a young singer/pianist died onstage in france in the past month or so, but I can't for the life of me find a news story about it. Pretty sure it wasn't Barbara Weldens either.
― peace, man, Friday, 10 September 2021 21:56 (two years ago) link
Wait, nevermind. It was totally her. I must have got linked to it as a news story and thought it was recent.
― peace, man, Friday, 10 September 2021 21:57 (two years ago) link
Let us not forget Beef from The Phantom of the Paradise as well.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 10 September 2021 22:08 (two years ago) link
Eryl also remembers the night that Kippington Lodge came dangerously close to losing their bass player. In addition to the ballroom tours backing artists such as Billie Davis and J. J. Jackson, the group’s most prestigious live work was their regular support slot at London’s Marquee Club. On 5 July 1969, just a few hours after the Rolling Stones had performed their famous free concert in Hyde Park, the Kippingtons opened for the organ-based trio, Village, at the Marquee. ‘Nick got electrocuted while playing,’ recalls Eryl. ‘He fell down, writhing on the stage. Faulty wiring was blamed.’ ‘I had one hand on my bass strings and the other reaching for the mic, and about to say, “How’re ya doing, London?” says Nick. ‘But as soon as I grasped the mic, a circuit was created and I was in big trouble. According to witnesses, I leapt about four feet in the air and was flung across the stage where I crashed into the amps and lay writhing and twitching on the floor, unable to let go of either my bass or the mic. In my head, I knew exactly what had happened. It was very unpleasant but I was strangely calm. I couldn’t see anything – it was like looking through frosted glass. All I could hear was a deep electronic drone note.Birch, Will. Cruel to Be Kind (pp. 60-61)
‘I had one hand on my bass strings and the other reaching for the mic, and about to say, “How’re ya doing, London?” says Nick. ‘But as soon as I grasped the mic, a circuit was created and I was in big trouble. According to witnesses, I leapt about four feet in the air and was flung across the stage where I crashed into the amps and lay writhing and twitching on the floor, unable to let go of either my bass or the mic. In my head, I knew exactly what had happened. It was very unpleasant but I was strangely calm. I couldn’t see anything – it was like looking through frosted glass. All I could hear was a deep electronic drone note.
Birch, Will. Cruel to Be Kind (pp. 60-61)
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 10 September 2021 22:15 (two years ago) link
Here's another misconception that I only corrected about 10 years ago. I was browsing in a record store, picked up the 1971 record by McDonald and Giles, and was shocked to see that the store had put on a sticker to the effect of: "Hey DJs! Great breakbeat!"See, I was naive enough to believe that if someone sampled a record as relatively obscure as McDonald and Giles, it was because they were King Crimson or prog superfans, not because a sticker in a record store had alerted them to the existence of a breakbeat on the record. I was also naive enough to be surprised that a record store would thus cater to people who make music from samples rather than "real music fans", i.e. people who look for the meaning of life in a McDonald and Giles LP.
― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, 11 September 2021 15:18 (two years ago) link
Interesting.
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 11 September 2021 15:24 (two years ago) link
That Nick Lowe story is amazing :o. xp
― (the one with 3 L's) (Willl), Saturday, 11 September 2021 15:25 (two years ago) link
gimme the breakbeatsand free my soulI wanna get lostin some neo-soul
― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Saturday, 11 September 2021 15:28 (two years ago) link
I crashed into the amps and lay writhing and twitching on the floor, unable to let go of either my bass or the mic.
I'd always wondered what inspired the the couplet in "So It Goes", "He got fifty thousand watts / In a big acoustic tower". Now I know!
― Vast Halo, Saturday, 11 September 2021 21:01 (two years ago) link
Ha, never made that connection before!
― What Does Blecch Mean to Me? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 11 September 2021 21:02 (two years ago) link
Neither had he, apparently
― Josefa, Saturday, 11 September 2021 21:46 (two years ago) link
I also never knew Nick Lowe's main source of income is The Bodyguard soundtrack
― Spikevax, the beloved entertainer (Lee626), Saturday, 11 September 2021 21:55 (two years ago) link
<blockquote> Raven, where did you grow up that you knew sonata form before hearing any verse-chorus songs like "Jingle Bells" or "Oh Susanna"?
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Saturday, 11 September 2021 7:24 AM</blockquote>
I mean, I must have heard plenty of songs with verse/chorus before mustn't I?I think I just didn't actually engage until a certain point, and I'd already learnt some kind of music theory.I was naïve but I was also hella young. I was late to "pop music" and voraciously accelerated - Sting/The Police was the starting point of actual fandom I think.
― raven, Sunday, 12 September 2021 10:24 (two years ago) link
<blockquote>Raven, where did you grow up that you knew sonata form before hearing any verse-chorus songs like "Jingle Bells" or "Oh Susanna"?― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Saturday, 11 September 2021 7:24 AM</blockquote>I mean, I must have heard plenty of songs with verse/chorus before mustn't I?I think I just didn't actually engage until a certain point, and I'd already learnt some kind of music theory.I was naïve but I was also hella young. I was late to "pop music" and voraciously accelerated - Sting/The Police was the starting point of actual fandom I think.
Ugh forgot BBcode.
― raven, Sunday, 12 September 2021 10:26 (two years ago) link
The Police were especially good at bringing out a strong contrast between verse and chorus tbf.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Sunday, 12 September 2021 13:02 (two years ago) link
I remember conflating the various Van Zan(d)ts. Like, there was one who was dead, one or more who were alive. And somehow one played with Bruce Springsteen, presumably one of the alive ones.
I'm not sure at what point I heard of Townes Van Zandt, but I probably tried to fit him into the same overall Van Zystem.
― Richard Marxist (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 12 September 2021 14:08 (two years ago) link
I used to think that 'Trad. Arr.' on song credits was an actual person's name, or possibly a writing duo.
― Portsmouth Bubblejet, Sunday, 12 September 2021 15:28 (two years ago) link
Or a pirate.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Sunday, 12 September 2021 15:35 (two years ago) link
Led Zeppelin used to think songs that were written by 20th century musicians were 'standards'
― you had me at "giallo" (Neanderthal), Sunday, 12 September 2021 16:54 (two years ago) link
(xp) sea shanties
― How does Spock's brain come into this? (Tom D.), Sunday, 12 September 2021 17:12 (two years ago) link