The Byrds: Classic Or Dud

Edd otm re: Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers. "Elevator Operator" is the best Revolver outtake ever.

showgazers alique

WTF?! Dunno where that came from...If that was some arcane joke, it hasn't aged well, or at all.

who the heck was Jacques Levy, am I supposed to know who he was? the name sounds way familiar.

-- Stormy Davis,

Co-writer of most of Dylan's Desire.

you don't miss your water till your well runs dry

I think the Byrds are only alright. Some very good songs, but a lot of duffers, and I can only take so much of that nicey vocal harmony stuff.

die

The production on "You Don't Mis Your Water" is really quite trippy -- the way that the vocals bleed across the front of the sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9cINH9yob4

some tasty licks there...and some sweet beards

I never quite understood what he intended to do with the horse once he caught it.

feel like someone on ILM recommended it on another Byrds thread, but that Live At Royal Albert Hall thing that came out a few years back is incredible. Better than Untitled!

i agree, tyler.

when he caught the horse they were gonna be friends for live, obv.

life*

just like a wife ... hmmm.

haven't heard this but hey: http://martiansboots.blogspot.com/2009/11/byrds-at-fillmore-west-jan-4-1970.html

Is there like a career-spanning Clarence White comp? Would buy.

Don't know of a comp but do you keep up with the blog Adios Lounge? He's been doing a pretty exhaustive recap of White's career, full of audio and video. He writes these posts off and on so search by category at his site, then start at the oldest one and go forward.

http://www.adioslounge.com/search/label/Clarence%20White

!!!
Nice, exactly what I had in mind.

What's with the floating German ghost lady?

if john york had stuck around for the last few records things would have been much improved. his voice blended really well with mcguinn and battin's kim fowley co-writes are mostly dud. also, you can tell from some of the live recordings from the york era that he gave them more of a hard edge. battin was serviceable but more of a mellow jam sort of guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmcks4WU6K8

Fifth Dimension sounds like the best album ever tonight; even "Captain Soul"! "I Come And Stand At Every Door" is spectral doom: "I need no fruit, I need no rice / I need no sweets nor even bread". Almost every song has an undercurrent of immanent disaster; and they weren't wrong, just two years early.

Clarence White was just ridiculous.

listening to Untitled for the first time ever...live half didn't do much for me (the "Eight Miles High" was kinda ridiculous) but the studio side is very nice, intricate folk rock; the guitar parts (bass included) are interesting, and the vocals are suitably restrained.

Also, having relistened to the entire Byrds oeuvre through Untitled so far in the last day or so, I'll point out the obvious: these guys covered Dylan a lot. There's an interview on one of the reissues, Notorious or Sweetheart maybe, where McGuinn says that they're kinda over covering Dylan, because they've found their own songwriting voice...but then Dr. Byrds has two Dylan songs (and a third if you count bonus tracks).

i know it's one of their Official Classix and everything, but i think turn! turn! turn! (the song) is their best moment.

It's unfortunate that the song has been sort of ruined (for me) by 60s montages on TV.

yeah, it is definitely one of those songs that has passed into the realm of cliche. but if you can turn all that off, it is pretty gorgeous, isn't it?

It's a great song. I like it enough that seeing Papa M do an instrumental cover in concert was kind of thrilling tbh.
It was probably my first favorite Byrds song.

"Turn! Turn! Turn!" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" are two of the most overplayed songs ever that I don't switch off when they come on the radio. I could list 10 Byrds songs I love more, but neither one is dead for me yet.

listening to John Reilly and What's Happening?! today, hazy summer bliss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoSwOrytf_M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gD84jbVV3c

that's the jam

haha, those dancers in the "nowhere" clip are rad. almost like they're dancing to a completely different song.

i've always been a little confused by the byrds' status in the late 60s -- were they seen as kinda passe at that point? i guess they just don't show up on a lot of those big festival movies.

Crosby seemed to think so.

yeah, i guess at that point, the byrds might've been "that band David Crosby used to be in." s'pose the fact that mcguinn was the only original member left made a difference too, no matter how awesome the clarence white-era band was.

What's weird to me is how quick the transition was. They always seemed like such distinct entities to me; the original lineup, the sweetheart aberration, the revamped rockers.
But all three of those things existed in 1968. Fucked up year, to say the least.

yeah, no kidding! sort of amazing there was a byrds at the end of all of it. seems like the easiest thing to do would be for mcguinn to start a solo career, but the namebrand thing must've been too much to drop.

"(Untitled)" is a really good album, especially with the unreleased tracks on the last CD reissue. It's kind of a shame that it didn't really give them the fresh start they were hoping. They definitely had a cool sound, much more muscular on some of the rockers and twangy when needed with Clarence White on guitar and good drummer with Gene Parsons. Really in some ways it was way more of a 'band' than the original group, which used a bunch of ringers on the earlier studio stuff. I suppose the fact that McGuinn was the only one left kind of made them seem lame to some. If they would have had a single that would have really landed, it might have been really different, but that is kind of the case of the 2nd half of the Byrds career. There was a lot of music happening in 68-70 to say the least, so I could see how a band, even one with a rep like the Byrds could get lost.

"seems like the easiest thing to do would be for mcguinn to start a solo career"

From what I get reading into all of this, the Byrds were pretty much broke so they were playing live a bunch to kill off some debt. That's the thing I got from an article about Clarence White. It might have been a situation like when Led Zep first toured as the Yardbirds at the beginning...I don't know.

http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/423727_10150578703543406_593208405_9013388_1130855863_n.jpg
1200 pages apparently! good lord.

dude

lol at volume 1 !
guess the second volume is supposed to be about the members' post byrds careers ...

I love that Michael can't keep a straight face in that photo.
Who are they kidding? Nice branch, Crosby!

i'm sure cros was like "this branch ... means something, man!"

So this is "Timeless Flight" expanded again?

yeah i think so. you'd think rogan would be so sick of the byrds by now.

i'm sure cros was like "this branch ... means something, man!"

He believed it played a part in the Kennedy assassination, iirc.

haha.
i actually haven't read timeless flight -- it's good?

Timeless Flight is very good.

Tempted to buy this, despite having bought 2 previous versions of "Timeless Flight". One of my all time favourite music books.