I got back into listening to them a couple of months back and bought the Low Spark cd around the same time. Think they're pretty great. There are a few live sets on torrent sites at the moment. Got one from Copenhagen in '68 last week.
THere's a Sunbeam reissue of an lp where they were backing Gordon jackson http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Back-Gordon-Jackson/dp/B000BZDGGY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1381054256&sr=8-2&keywords=gordon+jackson
too though I'm not sure you'd recognise them as Traffic. Haven't listened to the cd in a while but that may be mored own to lack of order in my cd collection than anything else.
Was just looking for them from the Midsummer Rock Cincinatti Pop Festival but can't find them on youtube's search enginehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-KbGbGIopMis them from Glastonbury Fayre in '71
&https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzcojNK9EnIis them in '68 on Pete & Dud's Goodbye Again
― Stevolende, Sunday, 6 October 2013 10:20 (ten years ago) link
Talk Talk: mid-late 80s :: Traffic: late 60s-early70s. winwood even plays organ on half of "colour of spring"! seriously, though, traffic started out doing timely deep psychedelic pop and moved on to expansive jammy pasutresl; talk talk moved from synth pop to rootsy miles/ECM meditations
― brimstead, Tuesday, 13 May 2014 01:56 (ten years ago) link
From the 'In Praise of... The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys by Traffic' thread:
keyboard-slash-lathe sounding thingYeah, I love that. Seems to me there's a bit of that circa Spirit of Eden/Laughing Stock Talk Talk, no?― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, November 2, 2003 11:31 PM (12 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Yeah, I love that. Seems to me there's a bit of that circa Spirit of Eden/Laughing Stock Talk Talk, no?
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, November 2, 2003 11:31 PM (12 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Larry 'Leg' Smith (Tom D.), Monday, 30 May 2016 19:32 (seven years ago) link
Isn't it some kind of plug-in effect/treatment on the Hammond? You can hear a normal organ part at beginning that quickly gives way to the fuzzed out bit we all know and love, as if Winwood realized he forgot something and flipped a switch.
― Now I Know How Joan of Arcadia Felt (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 30 May 2016 20:09 (seven years ago) link
I've been collecting versions of "Feelin' Alright" over the years. Its a great tune and some fine covers.
Any more to my list: Weller, Maceo Parker, Trinidad Oil Company, Fifth Dimension, Rare Earth.
― tigerclawskank, Tuesday, November 5, 2002 12:02 PM (13 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Isn't there a version finishing off Hustler's convention the Lightning Rod lp? I think it may come outof the last listed track but think it's there. Been a while since I listened to it as an lp though.
― Stevolende, Monday, 30 May 2016 21:38 (seven years ago) link
When the Eagle Flies is such an underrated album. 'Dream Gerrard' is hypnotizing.
― Austin, Saturday, 2 July 2016 04:54 (seven years ago) link
Love the mellotron strings on that one
― brimstead, Saturday, 2 July 2016 05:26 (seven years ago) link
"Walking In The Wind" is so good, too. Sounds like a warm-up for Winwood's s/t + Arc Of The Diver.
― brimstead, Saturday, 2 July 2016 05:28 (seven years ago) link
I need to revisit Eagle, I haven't listened to it in years
― Taking dumps on a person's car is something children do (Sparkle Motion), Sunday, 3 July 2016 17:23 (seven years ago) link
guiding yogis into heavenand heave is in your mind
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 7 August 2017 18:11 (six years ago) link
*heaven
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 7 August 2017 18:23 (six years ago) link
i'll try moongazer, because with you i'm stronger
Chris Wood box set from last year has a ton of good stuff in it. Smoother, more 70s-sounding than Traffic but lots of dope extended jams.
― brimstead, Monday, 7 August 2017 18:39 (six years ago) link
lean streaky music, spawned on the streets
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 7 August 2017 19:27 (six years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWn38OtjAKU
does traffic as a band, and furthermore as an idea of music making in general, just not make sense to anyone else? or is it just me?
they had some jams, but i always get the urge to listen to them when i feel like i want to hear music made by people who had no clue why they were doing what they doing. idk, it's a weird concept.
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Saturday, 4 July 2020 18:02 (three years ago) link
"Walking In The Wind" is so good, too. Sounds like a warm-up for Winwood's s/t + /Arc Of The Diver/.
― calstars, Saturday, 4 July 2020 19:19 (three years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/p0YE76l.jpg
― calstars, Saturday, 29 August 2020 15:31 (three years ago) link
Does this thread mention the connection between Traffic and Muscle Shoals?
― Two Little Hit Parades (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 29 August 2020 15:42 (three years ago) link
Steve Winwood embarked on a solo career, while Rosko Gee and Rebop Kwaku Baah joined German band Can.
had forgotten this !
santa monica, 1972:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocjSc7v83pk
― budo jeru, Saturday, 29 August 2020 16:01 (three years ago) link
what is the muscle shoals connection, James ?
― budo jeru, Saturday, 29 August 2020 16:02 (three years ago) link
I know shoot out was recorded there
― brimstead, Saturday, 29 August 2020 21:26 (three years ago) link
Just listening to some Traffic and noticed that, on his psych pop songs, Dave Mason sounds like (60s) Bowie - or vice versa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME3mICfgcQ4
Also, the Bonzos' occasional straight rock songs are very reminisicent of Traffic. I know the bands were chums.
― ILXceptionalism (Tom D.), Sunday, 6 December 2020 15:38 (three years ago) link
via Anthony Newley
― Josefa, Sunday, 6 December 2020 16:01 (three years ago) link
True, I never noticed the Bowiesque inflections in Mason's voice before. Maybe the lyrics are still a little fanciful to fit on his 67 album.
I heard Mason's Alone Together for the first time this year. I find it a more pleasant listen than the somewhat similar 1970 LPs All Things Must Pass or the Layla album (being a short single album instead of a long double or triple helps). I can see why some critics at the time celebrated it - Mason was one of the rock artists learning how to make a listenable running order of suitable diverse songs without tossing in a lame, underrehearsed cover or bizarre psychedelic experiment. Of course, within a few years, this consistency, maturity and tastefulness would congeal into tedium for the entire genre. This is what I take from Christgau calling him the "father of California rock-pop".
― Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 6 December 2020 16:23 (three years ago) link
It’s a really solid album
― brimstead, Sunday, 6 December 2020 17:16 (three years ago) link
it’s like you never left is really good too
Traffic are a good band for throwing up similarities, so "Vagabond Virgin" is like Amon Duul II (specifically the song "Tables Are Turned") fronted by "Laughing Gnome" era Bowie.
― ILXceptionalism (Tom D.), Sunday, 6 December 2020 19:19 (three years ago) link
Listening to Shoot Out and When the Eagle Files and hearing commonalities to the grooves on Can's Soon Over Babaluma and Landed and Live in Stuttgart 1975 that makes Can taking in the late-Traffic rhythm section make sense.
― Citole Country (bendy), Saturday, 4 September 2021 17:50 (two years ago) link
I've been listening to those two albums too.
"Shoot Out" just isn't very good, The title track is the best thing on it and doesn't sound like anything else they ever did - a wall of fuzz guitars with this relentless groove pummelling away behind it. "Roll Right Stones" lasts about two weeks and I can barely remember the rest of the album. Seems like a waste of the Muscle Shoals guys
"When the Eagle Flies" is much better, even though it has a strange listless quality. "Dream Gerrard" is a teensy bit too long and aimless - a common complaint with Traffic - but it and the following two tracks are still pretty great. Then the album just kind of dies, "Memories of a Rock 'n Rolla" is hopeless and the final two tracks sound unfinished and underdeveloped, "Love" sounds like they're making it up as they go along. Jim Capaldi's drumming on this album is great!
― Starmer: "Let the children boogie, let all the children boogie." (Tom D.), Monday, 18 October 2021 09:38 (two years ago) link
What I love about those records is a strange combination of their aristocratic arrogance (in the running times, relaxed tempi, etc.) and guileless earnestness (in the lyrics and Winwood's emotionally transparent voice). They really believe their audience wants to join them in a 15-minute contemplations of standing stones or French surrealist poetry. I love "Roll Right Stones" so much that I sometimes listen to both versions of it (the 13:40 original mix and the "sprightly" 11:46 later mix) in a row. I admit that I have a greater tolerance for listlessness than the average listener."Love" was in fact actually improvised and recorded onstage with vocals overdubbed later.
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 18 October 2021 14:51 (two years ago) link
It's all about the second side of Shootout for me, especially "Tragic Magic" and "Uninspired." Coincidentally, both of those tracks make up one side of "On The Road" and I've played that side a ton.
― Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson), Monday, 18 October 2021 15:30 (two years ago) link
"Love" was in fact actually improvised and recorded onstage with vocals overdubbed later.
Ah well, that makes sense!
― Starmer: "Let the children boogie, let all the children boogie." (Tom D.), Monday, 18 October 2021 15:46 (two years ago) link
"Roll Right Stones" lasts about two weeks
Starts off like Robert Wyatt too! There's nice parts in this song but I hate the clunky chorus so much, unfortunate as it's repeated about a million times.
― Monthly Python (Tom D.), Thursday, 14 September 2023 20:10 (eight months ago) link
I've been collecting versions of "Feelin' Alright" over the years. Its a great tune and some fine covers.Any more to my list: Weller, Maceo Parker, Trinidad Oil Company, Fifth Dimension, Rare Earth.
I am unironically and perhaps unreasonably attached to the version that Joe Cocker and John Belushi did on SNL.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 14 September 2023 20:13 (eight months ago) link
"Glad" is a Fucking JAM.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 4 April 2024 02:51 (one month ago) link
100%
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Thursday, 4 April 2024 02:57 (one month ago) link
...and it blows my mind that so much of it is just Winwood (and Chris Wood to a lesser extent) overdubbing. It really feels a big group of seasoned players just *going off*
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 4 April 2024 04:32 (one month ago) link