DIRE STRAITS c or d

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?

Rep for "Six Blade Knife":

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

rep for the whole first album!

ber neh ber-neh ber-neh ber-ner-neh-nurUR

HA!

good jj cale vibes on six blade knife

btw it's fun to listen to 'lady writer' and pretend it's actually tom verlaine you're hearing

Love Over Gold fucking rules.

and 'Twisting By The Pool' is shite.

Love Over Gold is a good record indeed, I kept that and the debut in my collection

although Telegraph Road is a... well, stupid is not the right word, but it's a weird song that's too ambitious for its own good and really doesn't deliver at all lyrically

sounds pristine tho

It's strange - if people ever speak about this band these days, it's usually about the Brothers in Arms period or 'Sultans of Swing', and even then they seem to be one of those formerly huge bands that generally hardly ever crop up in musical discussions anymore.

Making Movies and Love Over Gold come across as the bands peak now, and both are very underrated these days.

Making Movies, short a song maybe, is their masterpiece. Roy Bittan really livens things up, especially on "Tunnel of Love," which is also their peak.

Brothers in Arms was actually the end, IMO... I don't like the one LP they put out after, I'm not a fan of Knopfler's solo work at all and I fucking detest 'Walk of Life' more than 'Twisting by the Pool' ...

Will never miss a chance to repost this:

http://www.wolproject.com

Communique is good too

really good, dare I say

Most of the self-titled first album too. "Six Blade Knife" and "Water of Love"...

I don't like the one LP they put out after

The title track of On Every Street has the greatest guitar part Knopfler ever wrote, tho.

Communiqué is far better than many would have you believe, yeah!

well yeah self titled is a total classic xxp

communique may not be as tight or well written as the debut but the production is really nice and i love hearing those guy play

Had heard the story that Tuaregs in exile in Libya had heard Dire Straits and been influenced by it, and now there’s 90s video evidence of Libyans playing "Sultans of Swing"

http://sahelsounds.com/2018/03/dire-straits-in-the-sahara/

Richard Thompson is convinced that Knopfler ripped off his guitar sound. He's very serious about it, I heard him discussing it in a recent interview...

interesting, have a link?

Thompson's sound seems a lot more powerful to my ears

RTs soloing has an emotional violence to it that you just don’t find in Knopfler imo. I guess you could compare eg Walk Of Life with Tear Stained Letter, but that similarity would be down to shared influences

Oh man, the audience watching that Libyan band doing SOS look bored as shit

Niels – it was this podcast: http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_634_-_richard_thompson_lemmy_kilmister

I don’t remember if it was Maron who brought the topic up (think so?); but I recall RT was definitely “salty” about it (as the kids say).

I never really thought of them as similar guitarists. I guess they both play Strats and sort of apply folk techniques? Regardless, I say hats off to anyone able to ape Richard Thompson, there's more than mimicry involved there. And besides, Knopfler can write songs, too.

Good Knopfler interview(s) here: http://ds.mk-guitar.com/knopfler-interviews.htm

I was in my 20s in the 80s and i cherishes this band at the time. But when the smiths came dire straits turned into pleasant mainstream without interest.

I think at this point I'd probably rather listen to Dire Straits than The Smiths.

I remember seeing Richard Thompson live, maybe 20 years ago. He was quite funny, talking about movie soundtracks. He said "Here's how it goes with soundtracks. They always start out asking for Mark Knopfler. Then when he asks for too much money, they come looking for me."

Weird one-way rivalry. Not sure how Thompson’s grudge (whatever merit it may have) exactly squares with “avoiding ego” or what I understand to be other aspects of his adopted faith, but that’s none of my business....

Hmm, both these guys are accomplished English musicians born in ’49 and have been awarded “OBE”. Maybe they’ve bumped against each other in other ways over time, or it’s one of those “too close for comfort” rivalries.

Tried recently to sell a friend on Dire Straits. Wasn't interested. I then played some Richard Thompson. She said it sounded like Dire Straits.

QED

My children used to watch the show "Dinosaur Train."

If you are familiar with this show there are occasional appearances from a paleontologist, Scott Sampson.

His main fossil discovery was named after Mark Knopfler, apparently because the crew listened to his music a lot and found it inspiring.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masiakasaurus

(insert lazy joke about classic rock / dinosaurs here)

Weird:

Classic rock fans rejoice, the music of roots rock icons Dire Straits will soon return to stages in the United States. For the first time in decades, all of the band’s hits and more can be experienced live, on-stage via the world-class contingent that is DSL Dire Straits Legacy. A celebration of the music of Grammy-Award-winning, multi-platinum-selling British rockers Dire Straits, DSL Dire Straits Legacy features four Dire Straits band members – Alan Clark (piano/keyboards), Danny Cummings (percussion), Mel Collins (saxophone) and Phil Palmer (guitar/musical director) – along with revered musicians, drummer Steve Ferrone (Tom Petty) and producer Trevor Horn of The Buggles and Yes (ABC, Tom Jones, John Legend, Cher, more) on bass, as well as Italian musicians Marco Caviglia (vocals/guitar) and Primiano DiBiase (keyboards).

Kinda wish Knopfler had shown up at the RnR Hall Of Fame, played Les Boys and then cleared off again

As one of the few bands to break up and stay broken up, Dire Straits has sort of gotten brushed into the dustbin. Which, combined with the punchline ubiquity of their blockbuster years, kind of leaves them ... underrated? I just listened to Communique and Love Over Gold for the first time in ages and I think I enjoyed every minute. Some great mood, lovely playing.

I have mixed feelings about Dire Straits, but I love this version of Portobello Belle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sQO-CDV_LA