Billy Joel C/D?

I like we got a slight repeating motif with the "ack-ack-ack-ack/you oughta know by now" bit. Had to turn it off when it got down to just "Captain Jack" and "Piano Man" though.

"goodnight saigon" would have helped solve the problem of the "capt jack"-only ending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqY6mXULzpw

Funny how the worst 4 fucking lines from 'Piano Man' still manage to come through.

I heard about this piano throwing incident back in the 80s, but I heard that it was because this Russian crowd was sitting quietly and listening to his performance (as was the cultural norm) instead of going crazy and screaming (which is what they do in the US). He thought they didn't like him, so in frustration he threw his piano. But it seems that in this video, he flipped out because of... the lighting?

“Remember, this was the Soviet Union in 1987, and they’d never had a major rock concert before. There was a film crew filming a documentary, and they turned very bright lights on the audience. The audience was having a good time until they turned the lights on. They froze; they turned paranoid. There was a lot of anxiety they are we being looked at? And whenever they turned the lights on, anyone who was overreacting was being pulled out of the audience by a security guard. I wasn’t yelling at the audience was yelling at the film crew. So I threw the piano, and that got their attention. Then they stopped lighting the audience, and everybody started rocking out.”

http://siberianlight.net/billy-joels-historic-soviet-concert-tour/

Never ever heard about this before. You can see his point mind.

I just discovered this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScIWg0iOxUw

People call this the worst album ever? Come on... It may not all be incredible, but it's mostly credible and gets points for heaviness without guitars and pretty early for such nonsense. And it shits all over "Uptown Girl."

I knew about Attila, but only now learned the band broke up after Joel ran off with the other-guy-in-Attila's wife

Friend showed me this - Billy Joel did a Q&A at Vanderbilt & some kid asked to accompany him on New York State Of Mind

Half of me is like uggggh nonnono secondhand embarrassment but the other half of me is, well, okay this is kinda cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p04TYk4j0zQ

okay fine tbh all I could think was IT SOUNDS BETTER WHEN BILLY PLAYS IT
I'm a jerk

there's a certain kind of melancholy that can only be brought on by the thought that some young people are listening to and loving billy joel

security, escort this man outside plz

ZS, that is. not the kid.

billy joel rools!! nylon curtain is a GREAT album!!

classic early ILM posts above

otm

There are so many days when I can't get the phrase "the bag ladies throw their bones at my face" out of my head.

It's why I love this man so.

i just bought the 45 of the hassles' "4 o'clock in the morning" this morning on ebay. I had no idea this single existed until this morning. very different than the album version. like they were actually expecting radio play or something.

also today i relistened for the first time in forever to the epic operatic title cut to hour of the wolf, which simultaneously prefigured queen, meat loaf and "aladdin sane" by many years.

as a child i used to watch the hassles when they practiced in johnny small's garage, two doors down from my house. they used to do "a taste of honey" which i knew from the beatles. they also had a playboy calendar hanging up in there, which is probably my most vivid memory of those days. also they would lower the garage doors when we kids got too numerous / annoying. which must have been painful for them. even then i think i knew their first single was horrible. "you got me hummin'" was on the flip. can't remember the a-side. i have no conscious memory of billy as distinguished from all the other hassles.

you mean the hassles were good? NOW you tell me.

the smalls had a bottom-lit stone statue on their front lawn, and a spooky sounding doorbell, both of which i still associate with halloween.

wow! that's awesome, sang freud.

for the record i am not proclaiming the hassles as good, though they had a couple of moments. i'm pretty sure "you got me hummin" was the a-side. and i'm pretty sure that wasn't one of those moments.

did you ever get to see attila practice in johnny small's garage?

ha! no, i think johnny had moved out of his folks' house by that time...

I will give you motherfucking naysayers this, and only this: There has never been another human alive who has ever used the words "tonic and gin" in that order.

i sometimes catch myself saying "coke and rum" because of the game/50 cent song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llp8gkx6k5A

sometimes i say "falltime" because of that dream song

I don't change the station when I hear "A Matter of Trust.

huwunn
twoooooo
hwunntwoothreefawwww

the guitar groove is like lockjaw

"groove"

lol

http://www.billyjoel.com/news/rip-phil-ramone

Phil Ramone, music producer and dear friend, died this morning in New York at age 79.

Phil produced The Stranger, 52nd Street, Glass Houses, The Nylon Curtain, An Innocent Man, The Bridge, and the single “All My Life” released 2007. Our prayers and condolences are with the Ramone family. Phil will be deeply missed.

"I always thought of Phil Ramone as the most talented member in my band. He was the band member that no one ever ever saw onstage. He was with me as long as any of the musicians I ever played with - longer than most. So much of my music was shaped by him and brought to fruition by him. I have lost a dear friend - and my greatest mentor. The music world lost a giant today." - Billy Joel

Note too, in his honor, that Phil Ramone did not produce "We Didn't Start The Fire."

He was a Yankees fan, so, you know, nobody's perfect.

http://i.imgur.com/SxhibqM.jpg

I don't change the station when I hear "A Matter of Trust.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, April 2, 2013 10:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

His last even halfway decent song tbrr

anything after that I have to pull off the freeway to throw up, lol

I bet you've never done that after hearing a Billy Joel song.

Hassle makes good.

http://www.picturevisionpictures.com/2004/pvp-jon.html#

http://woodcast9.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/billy_joel.jpg
http://woodcast9.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/billy_joel.jpg
http://woodcast9.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/billy_joel.jpg
http://woodcast9.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/billy_joel.jpg

You should never argue with a crazy mi-mi-mi-mi mind

so in frustration he threw his piano.

Those old Yamaha electrics weigh a fucking ton. Billy Joel could just pick any of our little asses up and throw us through a wall.

It's been another Joely week for me - my lady acquaintance made me put on Glass Houses and everyone in the apartment was really feeling it. Today, Songs In The Attic. Maybe his best album? The live performances really knock some juice into the songs, and the largely-obscure setlist means that it's never thrown out of balance by huge singles you've heard too many times. See also my 'Miami 2017' thread. I kinda wish I was drunk right now though.

Songs in the Attic still feeling like the winner in this marathon. Just listened to 52nd Street straight through the first time in a decade at least. The first side is rock-solid ("Big Shot," "My Life," "Zanzibar") but the second really starts to wander after "Stiletto." "Until The Night" just kills everything dead. "52nd Street" itself is a decent Randy Newman pastiche though.

Still got a special spot for "Rosalinda's Eyes," so Side 2's cause isn't lost yet.

I freaking love Rosalinda's Eyes, the long fade out with that reverb-y cowbell is all time.

Never really exposed to Joel as a kid. I remember my mother telling me when I was young that "Uptown Girl" was an Eric Clapton number.

Only came across him during random job-lot purchases on eBay and I picked up seven of his rekkids for £1 (Streetlight Serenade, The Stranger, Glass Houses, An Innocent Man, Greatest Hits I & II, Storm Front & River of Dreams).

Some good stuff. I don't understand why he's so viciously hated. At the very least, Innocent Man is a fun, joyful album and a few of his others have good moments.

I'd like to think his critical stock is on the rise, it certainly seems too low at the moment.

Of the Joel albums I've heard (quite a few), An Innocent Man is definitely the easiest one to like.

Wonder Woman, you have got me in a spin
Jesus Christ, I can’t believe the shape I’m in
Everything is all mixed up and upside down
Everything is whirling twirling ‘round and round
Oh no no no, whoa, round and round and round

while he's never ever been a critic's darling, i'm not sure his stock is especially low at the moment, and i'm not sure it's due to rise or fall anytime soon. he's one of those rock and roll constants, who's always had plenty of fans in both high and low places, and plenty of haters in both high and low places too. he's reliable that way. i think this assessment from way upthread pretty much nails it:

he's like a director who makes reliable action, hack-ish action movies but is capable of occassionally -- when the mood strikes him -- making a real highbrow film.

― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 31 July 2007 01:30 (5 years ago)

i'd edit that somewhat. i'm not sure he's ever made, or tried to make, that highbrow film. rather, at his best (glass houses, an innocent man, the stranger,) maybe turnstiles), he makes great action movies, and at his worst, he does well-made schlock. maybe the nylon curtain had highbrow intentions, i don't know, but basically joel has been proudly middlebrow from the start. he knows how to entertain, and he usually does.

Innocent Man does loving pastiche very well. I've probably said this multiple times throughout this thread, but Nylon Curtain is an excellent LP.