does tom petty have any redeeming qualities?

[And I bet if you read a Creem review of his stuff around that time, they'd be more likely to mention him in relation to, say, Dwight Twilley than either California rock or Southern rock. So in 1978 he wasn't exactly new wave, but he was for sure on the borderline of it -- like Cheap Trick, or the Cars.]

The fact that he (allegedly) lip-synced his Super Bowl performance makes me love him more:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-petty_0204gl.ART.State.Edition2.4531d76.html

The Cars weren't New Wave?

(xp)

The fact that he (allegedly) lip-synced his Super Bowl performance makes me love him more

it would explain the sound quality being so much better than, say, the stones.

(see, lip-syncing is very new wave.)

The Cars weren't New Wave?

In retrospect it seems like they obviously were, but in 1978 (at least in Detroit) they were pulling in too many mainstream rock REO/Styx/Frampton fans (like my older brother, who also bought Cheap Trick) to seem completely new wave. (From Xgau's 1978 Pazz & Jop essay: "most music bizzers are relieved that the Sex Pistols have vanished into infamy; they still find the Clash strident and the Ramones simplistic, declaring such bands unacceptable to the imaginary consumer who personifies their own complacency and cowardice. But because it's the nature of complacent cowards to hedge all bets--and because they want to prove they're not, you know, square--they reassert their own putative attachment to 'good' rock and roll at the same time, thus easing the sales breakthrough of 'twixt-wave-and-stream bands like the Cars and Cheap Trick. " Earlier in the essay, he counts up the number of new wave finishers in the top 30, and says the Cars and Cheap Trick [and Eno] don't count. Also says "the Cars may share a producer with Queen, but they share a&r, not to mention key musical ideas, with Television and the Dictators." Though I'm not sure what musical ideas he thinks they specifically shared with those two.)

he Cars may share a producer with Queen, but they share a&r, not to mention key musical ideas, with Television and the Dictators.

Heh - I'd have reversed these two clauses.

I think Richard Lloyd was quoted in Please Kill Me about hearing an advance tape of the first Cars album during the sessions for Adventure and he told Verlaine that it was over for Television because Elektra had found a group that souded like them but with radio-friendly songs.

The Cars = Geir Television.

Most Tom Petty fans are unaware that the original title of his smash hit 'Don't Do Me Like That' was originally 'Don't Screw Me In Scat', a bawdy tale about Petty's experiences in Tiajuana. When record execs balked, he re-recorded the song as "Don't Jew Me Like That". However MCA's chief audio engineer, Hymie Goldberg, merely dubbed over the word Jew and the song was released in the form we now know it.

Thank you.

he re-recorded the song as "Don't Jew Me Like That". However MCA's chief audio engineer, Hymie Goldberg, merely dubbed over the word Jew and the song was released in the form we now know it.

Joking, right? I've never heard this. No mention of it on the all-knowing internet, either.

this thread at first seems pretty annoying and full of silly challops but after reading it more closely i'm finding it quite entertaining.

while we're here, let's talk about long after dark.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/19/PettyLongAfterDark.jpg

the most overlooked tom petty record, imo. great singles -- "you got lucky," "change of heart," "straight into darkness," "we stand a chance" -- and some of my favorite petty album tracks: "finding out," "the same old you," "deliver me."

"Straight Into Darkness" is terrific.

I got up the (underrated?) Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) for a buck a couple of months ago. It's worthwhile as the back-to-basics album Petty never recorded in the seventies; call it a post-reactionary reactionary album. "Jammin' Me" has always been one of my favorite singles, inexplicably omitted from the original greatest, and there's a couple of other numbers ("Runaway Trains") where he doesn't yowl so much.

anyone heard "Waiting For Tonight," with absolutely killer harmonies by The Bangles? Wonderful song.

let me up has some nice songs. i love "runaway trains." "it'll all work out" is pretty, "think about me" is good. "ain't love strange."

xpost: yeah, that bangles song is on the petty box set (which i found for like $20 a few years ago -- six discs!). it's a good tune.

Oh, come on. He's about as mainstream as my taste goes, but he's a swell fellow, a very consistent artist and his catalog is full of unexpected surprises. "Here Comes My Girl" is a perfect example of exactly the sort of heartbreakingly perfect song that Chrissie Hynde might have written for the first Pretenders album - check it out. And for more than 25 years, he's engaged in anti-price-gouging battles with his label over high list prices and whatnot. He's made a record with his pre-Heartbreakers band thirty years later to help his old buddies out for giving him his start. Roger McGuinn said when he heard "American Girl" he assumed it was one of his old classics he'd forgotten about and was crushed to learn it wasn't his song at all, but a deliberate McGuinn tribute by Petty. A fine fellow.

Good race car driver.

tipsy mothra and alfred completely otm re: long after dark and let me up and especially re: runaway trains. jeez lord I love that song.

"Don't Come Around Here No More" with Dave Stewart's help was the only redeeming quality Tom Petty had

I recently heard Hard Promises all the way through for the first time. Wow. Pretty damn awesome. It's a lot tougher than I expected. Hell, I have to give Petty props for being so influenced by Gene Clark, too. Now that's good taste.

yeah besides the obvious classics ("the waiting," "a woman in love") hard promises has "thing about you," which is one of his best rave-ups.

while we're here, let's talk about long after dark.

the most overlooked tom petty record, imo. great singles -- "you got lucky," "change of heart," "straight into darkness," "we stand a chance" -- and some of my favorite petty album tracks: "finding out," "the same old you," "deliver me."

I saw him last month on the current tour and he didn't do anything from this record. ;_;

Hey! I thought I was crazy to rent that four hour documentary, but it turned out to be pretty worthwhile. Tom's audibly stoned to the gills in every interview clip, but he has some surprisingly thoughtful things to say about the record company turf wars, how they adapted to MTV, and working with Roger McGuinn, Del Shannon, etc. It peaks, of course, with the Wilburys period.

Relieved that Bill Flanagan thinks Let Me Up is a personal favorite.

I saw about 10 mins of that doc on VH1-something-or-other. Hoooolllleeee shit does that look like (even more of) a tedious piece of shit (than I'd thought it did). The only thing I can think of that's worse-looking is that book of interviews with him.

that's cuz you've never heard Stan Lynch as an interview subject/object.

haha the 10 mins I saw involved him leaving the band, so I'd say that's a good amount of WHY it sucks!

not surprisingly, i want to see this. "stoned to the gills" sounds like par for the course, pettywise. he, willie and snoop could do some kind of cannabis wilburys thing.

the traveling potbrownies

the kottonmouth kings

I had the same reaction to the documentary that I did after reading Bill Flanagan's U2 book: it succeeded in reminding me that above average bands can talk GREAT shit when interviewed, which means I'll give their work another try.

I just heard "Insider" for the first time. Good song!

I just heard "Insider" for the first time.

!!!

Baffled how you missed it what with Stevie and everything. Better than good imho... probably POXworthy and in a catalog like his that's saying something.

If the answer to the original thread question revolved solely around how he carried himself in this story, no.

Credit to Shawn Macomber at Decibel for doing some raking over the coals.

This article has got me wondering if Anal Cunt can be connected to The Heartbreakers in three or less degrees.

i ~guess~ i'm beginning to understand why X'gau called TP a "dick" in his Wildflowers review (that coincidentally is the worst piece of writing i think i've ever read by the Dean)

I've listened to the bastard more often in the last fourteen months than I ever have, but, well.

the concert footage at the end of that bogdanovich doc (which i watched on sundance, mostly in ffwd) is hysterical. dude comes off like Ted Nugent wishing he was Van Morrison.

This bandtoband site thinks 9 degrees is shortest!

Anal Cunt/Scott Hull
Agoraphobic Nosebleed/James Randall : "Jay Randall"
Isis/Aaron Turner
Old Man Gloom/Nate Newton
Converge/Aaron Dalbec
Only Crime/Bill Stevenson
Minuteflag/Mike Watt
Wylde Ratttz/Ron Asheton
The New Order/Scott Thurston
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers

from a live review circa Great Wide Open: Forty-five minutes into the show, during a strobe-lit version of "Don't Come Around Here No More," three characters masquerading as Presidents Bush, Reagan and Nixon chased Petty around the stage until he banished them by waving a mammoth peace sign.

sadly this isn't included in the documentary or easily found on youtube

yeah i remember that. 13 years old at the Inglewood Forum. It was awesome.

heyheyhey he was born a rebel.

Petty doesn't say anything particularly dickish in the WSJ article and the Decibel post is kind of hostile about totally random stuff (also seems to misinterpret "listened to 169 live takes of 'American Girl' for a live box set" as "took 169 takes to record the studio version of 'American Girl'").

Yeah, Petty seems pretty mild in that interview. The interviewer seems to want to create a Petty vs. Springsteen rivalry, but Petty doesn't really pursue it.

For a few minutes I wondered why I accepted Keef's routine avowals of his band's one-of-a-kindness and not Petty's, but, really, it came down to Petty's hair, and his interviews promoting The Last DJ.

I ask you, would a “rock god” really need to run 169 takes of “American Girl” to get it right, as Petty did according to this article? I’m gonna go ahead and posit probably not.

Uh, that's not what it said, Shawn Macomber of Decibel. It says he listened to 169 different live versions to pick one for the live box set. Anyway, ROCK STAR IN BEING COCKY, OVERCONFIDENT SHOCKER.

xxxp

I ask you, would “rock gods” really need to run 40 takes of "Start Me Up" to get it right, as the Stones did?

Also lol at this piece of question-begging: There’s some whining about Petty getting lost in Springsteen’s shadow--as if there were actually a comparison!