DIRE STRAITS c or d

nice piece up there, contenderizer

LOL all this talk about 'from Brothers In Arms onwards' but I didn't even realize they'd DONE anything after Brothers In Arms.

Man, that was an album tailor made for Musician Magazine to write 8 zillion articles about...

Well, the second half of Brothers in Arms is pretty dark, FWIW: "The Man's Too Big", "Ride Across the River", and the title track.

Years ago I was a huge fan of the Alchemy; at the very least, the live version of "Sultan's of Swing" is fucking great.

'the man comes around' by johnny cash owes a little something to 'the man's too big' imo. kinda hate that album though and the steely dan assertion at top is wrong (rip big man) but their earlier stuff is pretty tight.

Probably haven't listened to Brothers in Arms since the 80s but I sure listened to it a lot back then. Should keep an eye out for Love Over Gold on vinyl. I had a poster of the LOG cover on the wall in my college dorm-- no wonder I never had a girlfriend.

Also love Knopfler's theme to Local Hero.

Yeah, Local Hero soundtrack is great overall, though better in context than as something to listen to on its own. Main theme ("Wild Theme" or whatever) is AMAZING though, and I would listen to it anytime anyplace, basically for free. Saw Real Estate tonite (thread connections) and their excellent "Pool Swimmers" reminds me A LOT of that song. I mean a lot a lot.

Plus appreciate kind words from Michael B xpost, but wish I'd like taken a second to read that that first long ramble before hitting submit. So many awkwardness.

Shit, I mean "FAKE BLUES"! Again with the read before post thing gddmit! Suggestion to people is to listen to FAKE BLUES and the Local Hero theme.

helpfully:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EyoXb4DtHA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AePShfa66LU

I dunno, maybe it's just me...

l accidentally started liking "sultans of swing" cause I thought it was dylan

to my ears that real state track sounds blatantly like egyptian reggae without the fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg7WG6tCbrw

These guys are masters of badass build-up intros

― guammls (QE II), Wednesday, November 18, 2009 8:54 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

you need to search out Otterman Empire - Private Land for a dubbed out re-edit of Private Investigations.

it's one long badass build up intro

making movies is one of those albums where i probably played the first side 4,000,000 times and the second side, um, maybe 5 times.

am i the only one down with "expresso love"? (yeah it's kind of a re-write of "lady writer)

There's a bit in Sultans of Swing where the drummer goes into a double-time jazz beat for about five seconds which is amazing. Great track all round.

xpost nope, not just you. the "she was made in heaven" part's a little wack but the riff is pretty damn muscular imo

yeah, it's not like the first three songs on side 2 are bad or anything, they just don't quite compare. I used to play Skateaway on my parents' copy all the time when I was 11 or 12.

also Knopfler's solo tune "Vic and Ray" is awesome - it has this great ominous atmosphere and doesn't really sound like anything else he's done.

So I'm thinking that Dire Straits' debut LP is similar to Rickie Lee Jones' debut LP (same label Warner Bros., same year 1979 -- well, Dire Straits technically late '78 I guess, but didn't chart in the U.S. 'til January) in that both tease you by putting their only two non-slow songs with hooks and lyrics you'll actually remember when the songs are over at the beginnings of each side, then they get all drowsy and mumbly for the rest. Which I don't totally hate -- in DS' case, "Down The Waterline" and "Sultans of Swing" are very good and great songs respectively, and Knopfler's guitar has no problem carrying the rest of the LP as background atmosphere -- but it kind of pisses me off, since Knopfler was obviously a real writerly guy and you'd think he might be concerned with putting songs like "In The Gallery" (which might well prove him a homophobic asshole with no use for modern art, whatever) and "Wild West End" over. He probably does better with less arty blues-shuffle stuff like "Setting Me Up" and "Southbound Again," but I'm really not buying the schtick of those; just can't see him as the Delta blues codger he's pretending to be. Even Clapton did that way more convincingly. Still, guitar's great all over. And "Sultans" has to be one of the few songs in rock history (maybe any-music history) to deal expressly with audiences disagreeing about the definition of a musical genre. (As in "They don't give a damn 'bout any trumpet-playing band/It ain't what they call rock'n'roll"; pretty sure Knopfler disagrees, but at least he lets the pub-rocking-hating trendies in their brown baggies and platform soles have their say.) (Fwiw, I think "Wild West End" got some very brief AOR play in Detroit in '79, after "Sultans" and "Waterline" fell off -- like I heard it twice maybe -- but I might be conflating my memory of that with "Once Upon A Time In The West" off the second album, which definitely got airplay.)

"Down To The Waterline" I meant.

Also kinda neat how "Water Of Love" starts out exactly like something off Roxy Music's Manifesto ("Dance Away" I think), also from '79.

And "Sultans" has to be one of the few songs in rock history (maybe any-music history) to deal expressly with audiences disagreeing about the definition of a musical genre. (As in "They don't give a damn 'bout any trumpet-playing band/It ain't what they call rock'n'roll"; pretty sure Knopfler disagrees, but at least he lets the pub-rocking-hating trendies in their brown baggies and platform soles have their say.)

But the band is much more jazz than rock'n'roll, isn't it? I thought those lines were just to show that they're at the bar to get drunk, and will ignore anything outside of their chosen genre, even if the music is far superior to whatever they listen to.

Guess you could read it that way -- They're called the Sultans of Swing, after all, and they obviously have trumpets -- but I've always thought of them as more of an eclectic roots band, if anything. Harry with the daytime job "can play honky-tonk like anything"; "The Sultans played Creole"; the whole verse about George knowing all the chords but just wanting to play rhythm on his old guitar, which is all he can afford. So yeah, it's possible I've always read too much into it -- but it's more interesiting my way, so I'm gonna stick with it.

Didn't Dire Straits come up through the British pub-rock scene, though? Seems to me roots bands are would've played in those places, maybe often in front of glammy trendy drunk kids. But I could be wrong (and just because those bands played those places doesn't mean that's who he's singing about. But Knopfler obviously has a thing -- see "In The Gallery," "Money For Nothing" -- about pitting the salt of the earth against what he seems to see as the artsy hipster phonies of the world. The Harry in "In The Gallery," who crafts bareback riders and coal miners out of clay and stone but can't get into museums where abstract art gets shown, might even be the same Harry who plays in the Sultans!)

So now I've pretty much decided that, even without a song as great as "Sultans Of Swing," and even though it's sort of a rehash in some ways, Communique is a more consistent LP than the debut -- easier to attend to all the way through, thanks to more songs that stick and Knopfler frequently pushing his tasty guitar atmosphere to the forefront. Very sweet solos in "Where Do You Think You're Going?" and "Portobello Belle," and I also like his Latin stuff in "Angel Of Mercy" and country boogie in the otherwise kinda draggy title track and especially the spaghetti western with which he appropriately opens "Once Upon A Time In The West" -- the latter also being one of the two catchiest tracks along with "Lady Writer", which once again are both side openers and the ones that I think got AOR airplay back then. On the second side he seems obsessed with Catholic girls, not that he he seems all that incisive about the issue -- lady on TV talking about Virgin Mary while hair falls down upon her face as he remembers his fall from grace in "Lady Writer," angel who's gonna save his soul in "Angel Of Mercy," Irish girl taking part with a blind guy (bluesman maybe?) in what seems like it might be a halfway decent short story if I listened closer in "Portobello Belle." Also haven't figured out yet whether the sailor in "Single Handed Sailor" has one hand because he's jerking off or he has a hook or what. Mostly like the words of "Once Upon A Time In The West," which I gather is about L.A. rather than the Wild West End, though it seems peevish how Knopfler opens the album whining about people scaring pedestrians by exceeding the speed limit when his music's main problem is that it frequently could afford to go faster. Still, tempos do pick up some in general here, which helps.

Actually, guess I mean he seems defensive. And come to think of it, it might not be so much that BPMS increase a little ("Sultans of Swing" still feels like their most propulsive song by far) as that, in the non-single/filler tracks, he's enunciating more, and his writing and playing come off less perfunctory than on the first album.

He probably does better with less arty blues-shuffle stuff like "Setting Me Up" and "Southbound Again," but I'm really not buying the schtick of those; just can't see him as the Delta blues codger he's pretending to be

i always thought he was going for more of a j.j. cale, "tulsa sound" kind of thing...

Also haven't figured out yet whether the sailor in "Single Handed Sailor" has one hand because he's jerking off or he has a hook or what.

That made me laugh. Don't really know who or what the song is about, but the whole thing is set around this boat, which is in dry dock in Greenwich in London.

Agree with yr overall assessment of this album's worth btw.

(which i think he does rather brilliantly)

i should re-listen to Communique and Making Movies; i suspect they would stick to my ribs a little better now than they did 12-13 years ago when i was obsessing over s/t

xx-post

I've got 'Single Handed Sailor' stuck in my head now and I'm thinking that the tune is a lot like Dylan's 'Oh Sister'.

So okay, what's the deal with the Twisting By The Pool EP, from 1983? (Or, as my copy says on the cover, ExtendedDanc"EP"lay -- not sure what its official name is supposed to be; Joel Whitburn's book lists it as the former.) Contractual obligation, frustrated sellout move, record label pressure to go more "pop," bid for the European market, or what? Title track might be the lightest, most frivolous thing they ever did, and it didn't chart Hot 100 at all in the States (EP went to #53 on the album chart), but I remember it being pretty ubiquitous in Germany when I lived there. (Actually, just checked Wiki -- only #31 Germany, but #14 UK, #1 New Zealand, #2 Australia, #11 Italy; apparently got "rock" airplay in the States, but only reached #105 pop.) And I guess, yeah, a dance song, though who would actually be "twisting" in 1983? Stray Cats fans? Except the lyrics says they're on holiday at the beach, dancing to "the Eurobeat" (first time I ever heard that word, I think, but living in Germany I thought it was a perfect genre name.) Song doesn't sound cynical, but knowing Knopfler, it's gotta be right? Maybe a template for Brothers In Arms (which I haven't listened to in entirety for decades so this could be way off), as in: moving away from uppity literary aspirations toward putting out dumb records the masses will buy. Three other songs on the EP, most substantial being a talked-not-sung five-minute diddy-bebop quasi-jazz (as in Steely Dan maybe) workout called "Badges, Posters, T-Shirts," about fans looking for merch and (I think) claiming they could drum better than the drummer. The B-side songs really do sound like B-sides, pleasant but forgettable, one sax based and maybe very slightly jump-bluesy ("Two Young Lovers"), the other piano based and possibly an attempt at Blonde On Blonde era Dylan. Did anymore care?

"Did anybody care?," I mean. (Actually, I was thinking they were on a career downswing by that point, and just fishing for whatever they could get, but I just noticed in Wiki that Love Over Gold from 1982 -- which I know basically nothing about -- apparently went #1 all over Europe, their first album to do so, but peaked at #19 in the States just like Making Movies before it had. So it's possible that, by this point, they figured the Euromarket was their future.)

"Two Young Lovers" - haha, that's the yakety sax song right?

Sax is by Mel Collins of King Crimson btw iirc

Contractual obligation, frustrated sellout move, record label pressure to go more "pop,"

A little of everything perhaps? The video for the title track was in pretty heavy MTV rotation and I recall that Rolling Stone had a very prominent review (I'm sure paid for). Love Over Gold was a complete non-entity in the US (despite the charts).

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/faggot-to-be-removed-from-dire-straits-song-20110114-19q9m.html

i never even knew that word was in the song until i read about that this morning!

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/faggot-to-be-removed-from-dire-straits-song-20110114-to-be-replaced- with-leftover-nigger-from-huck-finn-19q9m.html

guilty lol

guilty post

I think "Twisting by the Pool" EP is mostly an example of how they liked to play with American idioms. One interesting thing about Dire Straits, which connects w/ what someone said about Thin Lizzy, is how at their best they interpret and put their own spin on very "American" sounding rock'n'roll. Dire Straits did this a few different ways-- from proggy Springsteen-style epics to "yackety sax" kind of stuff-- and their fortunes in the U.S. really hinged on where their sound was at any given point and how well if fit with emerging, early-80s ideas of what "classic rock" meant.

"Twisting by the Pool" was also a harbinger for the boomer nostalgia of the 80s. For people of a certain age, it sounded like the music they heard as kids.

I've always suspected that "Twisting by the Pool" came about partly because they had just hired ex-Rockpile drummer Terry Williams, who was born to wail frantically on songs like this.

Sarcasm and irony is inappropriate in 2011?

Me on Love Over Gold: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/dire-straits-love-over-gold.html

Very good review. This is one of my father's favourite albums and "Telegraph Road" one of his favourite songs.

I was particularly interested in your comparisons with Steely Dan; I'd never made that connection before, but in retrospect, it's easy to see with Knopfler's style of playing and early adoption of digital technology.

Nice job. But why skip over It Never Rains? That's one of the best Dire Straits songs.

Never mind, I take that back.

been diggin 'Beryl' today

Posted this on the "World" music 2015 thread, but it also kinda belongs here

http://www.afropop.org/22260/accounting-for-taste/

On air this week is “Accounting for Taste.” We’ll find out how the fluid guitar playing of ’70s rock band Dire Straits became massively popular in the Sahel, influencing Tuareg rockers like Tinariwen and Tamikrest. We’ll hear about the American country superstar Jim Reeves’ African career, and the unlikely story of how the pedal steel made it from Hawaii to Lagos, Nigeria. Finally, we’ll travel to Angola to explore that nation’s death metal scene. Produced by Sam Backer with help from Jesse Brent.

Mauritanian Noura Mint Seymali's guitarist husband told me he listened to Dire Straits. But his guitar playing is such edgier and funkier (than I recall from Dire Straits).

― curmudgeon, Saturday, February 28, 2015 7:34 PM (0 seconds

http://africasacountry.com/the-unexpected-popularity-of-dire-straits-in-north-african-tuareg-communities

The guy who did the afropop.org radio story from February, wrote the later blog item. As I noted on the "world" music thread, when I interviewed Noura Mint Seymali's guitarist from Mauritania, he also noted that he listened to Dire Straits. But as the article notes, younger Tuaregs do not seem to listen to Dire Straits anymore because there are so many desert blues bands around. I wonder if Dire Straits are awarwe of their audience there?

Heh, tell that to Eric "Michelob" Clapton, who basically personified "cheap beer in the '80s." Knopfler soloing is the sound of you getting home, thinking about what you did or didn't do.

“Bar ambient” ?

Brian wino

Lol

And "Romeo and Juliet" is neither bar nor ambient.

bar ambient is equally good if you ignore it or focus drunkenly on it in an attempt to remain upright

The fuck is bar ambient tho

That Tunnel of Love clip might be the most Yawnsomely Literal music video I've ever seen.

love over gold is basically an ambient album

Love over Green World

My wife: "Dire Straits were dad rock before I knew what dad rock was."

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYMhS78R/

Thought I'd give the debut LP another try. I knew a few cuts were already favorites, and as the opening cut (one such favorite) was coming to a close, I was already singing "Water of Love" on the inside...or what I thought was "Water of Love" because to my embarrassment and disappointment, I was thinking of the later and better "Tunnel of Love" albeit with the title swapped out.

Of the 23 or so students in my mostly 9th grade French class this year, two were separately huge fans of Dire Straits, specifically Love Over Gold. I have no idea if this is random coincidence or represents some generational shift on Dire Straits.

I like the first two albums quite a lot. I felt so vindicated when I learned that Tuareg guitar bands listened to as much Knopfler as they did Hendrix

Also, the late Knopfler solo album Privateering is a bona fide masterpiece!

Chuck_Tatum at 11:49 24 Nov 19
The sax on Your Latest Trick is my Proust Madeleine

Lotta good stuff on the later Knopfler solo records.

I've been listening to the expanded pre-"Brothers in Arms" Dire Straits live album lately, what used to be called "Alchemy." He's such in many ways an underrated guitar player (despite being without a doubt highly rated, lol). His solos are just so ... searching, never flash without feeling, even when he is stretching out.

The practicalities of cross-licensing likely prohibits this, but I wish someone had put together a concise Knopfler anthology covering his best guitar work outside of Dire Straits: Dylan, Mavis Staples, Steely Dan, Van Morrison, Randy Newman, Phil Lynott, the McGarrigles, etc.

I love Alchemy, definitely the best showcase for his guitar playing.

This thread is basically the same users coming out and saying the same thing they have before. Pronouncing their love once one of us has a nostalgic listen. Not a bad thing.

I do need to try 1 and 2 again, having 3 and 4 so close to my heart more recently (recently is post 1990)

The trio of Brothers in Arms, the Notting Hillbillies project, and On Every Street was such a slide into boredom that I never bothered with the solo career. Maybe I'll reconsider.

Oh, I love the Notting Hillbillies album. Learned so much from the songs covered there, plus the original "Your Own Sweet Way."

Brothers in Arms is good

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but "So Far Away" is lovely. There's a great making of I read once, maybe in Tape Op? I'll try to dig it up.

Setting aside his solo soundtrack work, I thought this was a great later sort of comeback solo single:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCP93emyJ-c

"On Every Street" an underrated Dire Straits tune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5KpLRWY8sA

it was this interview with Neil Dorfsman:

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-tracks-dire-straits-money-nothing

"Mark was a very casual vocalist," Dorfsman remarks. "He'd often be smoking a cigarette while he sang, and we'd probably do six or seven similar passes and I would put something together.

This is the other bit that really stuck out, the insult to injury that was replacing Terry Williams with Omar Hakim:

"I'd always had my doubts that we were getting what we needed on the rhythm tracks, and I remember telling Mark early on that the drums weren't really happening," he says. "Initially, he didn't feel the same way, but after several weeks he picked up on my frustration. So, we decided to ditch the drums and bring in a new drummer to overdub onto the existing tracks. I remember Mark talking about maybe getting Roxy Music's Andy Newmark or the jazz drummer Peter Erskine, but eventually we sent for Omar Hakim. On the New York scene he was known more as a jazz-fusion drummer than as a rock drummer, but he was the kind of guy who could play anything and Mark was a big fan of his, so we brought him down to Montserrat and he re-did all of the tracks in about two and a half days. The first day he did about six, the next day he did three or four, and he was out of there by the third day. That was pretty mind-blowing.

So Terry struggles for weeks, then they get Omar, who does it in like two days. But it's Terry Williams doing the intro to "Money for Nothing," so there's that.

I've always been very fond of all of the Brothers in Arms singles, with the exception of "So Far Away", which is a great riff in search of a song.

Side b >>>>> side a

I like those guitar gremlins on "So Far Away."

the guitars on the less rockier material sound gorgeous, it's like knofler's trademark silky tone with added celestial magic or something. really just love the texture of the slower stuff, very watery/humid sounding idk

thanks for the link Josh, keen to read, love the way the album sounds - maybe when the CD revival really kicks in (lol) it will get a new lease on life

(I was talking to some early 20s hip kids at a gig the other week and one of them told me wide-eyed that they’d heard tell CD’s actually had the best sound quality, better even than vinyl!!!)

and brimstead, i am a side 2 fan as well - particularly ride across the river and the title track - but i think Why Worry is my fave

Brothers in Arms is good

my dad liked to say in the car that they were never as good once pick withers left and terry williams replaced him

Certainly it's hard to find a better name than Pick Withers.

In 2021, Withers re-surfaced with a new rhythm and blues band called 'Slim Pickin's', [8] later renamed 'Pick's Pocket'.[9]

Money riff