A Good Day In Hell - The Official ILM Track-By-Track EAGLES Listening Thread

Buddy Miles

scott seward ‏@skotrok 21m
"Teenage Jail" is underrated, I don't care what anyone says. The guitars are great!
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that's right i tweeted about it.

who's kelly keaggy?

Night Ranger dude.

the answer to Senor Seward's question is answered by Tarfumes' second to last post. His fills before the closing verse in "sister Christian" achieve henley levels of hapless flailing…

running the risk of sounding like a Eagles-style sexist, the only drummers cited so far that are shittier than Don are female. I'm not a fan of the Mo Tucker school, and don't think Georgia is very good.

His drumwork was indeed competent.

xp

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, October 18, 2013 10:07 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I always love that someone says this when Brewer's name comes up, he was actually a damn good drummer.

Georgia's no Buddy Miles, but there's nothing as soul-killingly plodding as H's work on "Victim of Love" in the YLT catalog

it's like Glenn wanted to do a parody of alice cooper/sabbath song, but 5-6 years too late. so ill-advised, but one of two tunes he sings on the record. In particular, Don sounds very gacked up. Know what though? I'll take this and tomorrow's selection over the sanctimonious elegy coming up on Sunday. I'm glad they put this on the record: you'd think a band universally known to be careerist, risk-averse and beholden to "quality control" would have developed one of the riffs you can hear on "Long run leftovers) instead of this utterly bizarre episode of cocaine psychosis.

― veronica moser, Friday, October 18, 2013 8:35 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah my first thought was that this was kind of a sabbath parody, like a sarcastic shot at their burnout fans etc?

what a bunch of dicks.

i feel like i've said this like 12 times on this thread but i cannot believe this mess got on a major label "event" album from a big band.

I always love that someone says this when Brewer's name comes up, he was actually a damn good drummer.

― One Way Ticket on the 1277 Express (Bill Magill), Friday, October 18, 2013 10:35 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'll grant that he was better than competent. But Mel Schacher's bass never literally rattled my bones, nor did I ever find Mark Farner's lyrics to be particularly wild (or, for that matter, shirtless).

Let's just move on to discussing what sort of vehicle the Alan Parsons Project was.

(Hovercraft, obvs.)

Spaceship duh!

fully-equipped RV

Pretty sure it was a hovercraft.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5x7ntsUZS1qz9m8ao1_500.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/47/Time_passages.jpg

Don Henley's drumming doesn't disgust me because he is technically deficient -- I don't really care about that, so comparing "bad" drummers isn't really worthwhile -- but imo as a drummer he is boring, uncreative, and devoid of feeling/passion. He has no flavor. He has no zeal. He is the hospital food of drummers.

his drumming is just like him

is the hospital food of drummers.

and just as expensive!

But Mel Schacher's bass never literally rattled my bones

^the bass sounds so good on their early records, especially the s/t red album. i dont have the chops to say whether he's a good player, but goddamn the bass just SOUNDED so good

He is the hospital food of drummers.

This is hilariously OTM.

But Mel Schacher's bass never literally rattled my bones

It's supposed to rattle your BONGS!

And John Garner is my favourite singe-drummer of ever.

lol "singer"

But singe-drumming does sound like some unappreciated art

pretty sure mel would have rattled you if you had seen grand funk live in the early 70's. think they were supposed to reach Who-level decibels at concerts back then.

nor did I ever find Mark Farner's lyrics to be particularly wild (or, for that matter, shirtless).

It's the delivery, man...

http://api.ning.com/files/wUP*es1PHsQjxC0XEQNpNSPeiiYW3Egy6M0TyWhOSMwzbfKGR6FAeaczWWn9Lx6uqntBLn2jp1h2Vbd6xoTKymAZtnVs9PFW/387746_143901142377997_113234608777984_154005_582000117_n.jpg

As for "Teenage Jail" (which, tbh, sounds like a GFR title)--more genuinely classic filler. Henley later called the three obvious filler pieces on this album "comedy songs", and I have to say that for such uptight & humorless dudes, their comedy material is way better than the peaceful easy loverman snoozefests that normally filled the bands between the hits. As for the Sabbath thing, perhaps their (musical) influence from those days at Criteria finally rubbed off?

people kinda forget that grand funk were as big an influence on future metal as deep purple or black sabbath. they were heavy heavy live. lots of bands got heavier after hearing them. world-wide. (or at least when people talk about the roots of metal and proto-metal they don't always bring up grand funk.) (probably because they got less heavy as time went on.)

Yeah, they're much better known for their goodtime boogiein' Freedom Rockin' singles than for "High On a Horse" or whatever

It's supposed to rattle your BONGS!

D'oh, you're right. I hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

My exposure to GFR is limited to the radio hits, Homer's hyping of them, Live Album listed among the worst live records in The Book of Rock Lists, and the following inscription on Parliament/Funkadelic records:

"Protect your loved one from GRAND FRAUD RAILROADISM!"

None of those things -- especially the captain song yeah yeah yeah yeah -- has made me want to investigate further, but I don't doubt they were influential.

i like them a lot. they are actually more varied than the radio hits would lead you to believe. they could be dopey, but their albums are very entertaining and honest to gosh funky too at times.

"The thing that closed the Fillmores down," he suggests, "and the thing that makes a group like the Who or Grand Funk, who really have got their finger on the pulse, sell-out so fast is that there's no place for good up and coming bands to play anymore."

But Townshend thinks the biggest thing holding rock back is the audience. It's not interested in ripping it up at concerts anymore. It just wants to sit there and watch. "Rock isn't doing what it did. Its audiences are buying records when they buy tickets to rock concerts. They're buying the privilege to see a performance, and not to be part of a rock event. For example, someone like Terry Knight will say one of his wonderfully stupid things, such as 'If Grand Funk says go out and smash the city, the kids will do it.' But the kids won't do it—they want Grand Funk to do it. If anybody's going to do any smashing, it's gotta be Grand Funk, because that's what they represent to their fans. And that's what I feel is wrong with the present scene. If anybody should tear down a city—let's not be so blatantly revolutionary —I mean if any changes have got to be made, it's got to be the people themselves that do it, and the music that talks about it, that instigates it, that reflects it and approves it while it's happening has got to be the product of communication between an entire generation and not just a bunch of musicians."

Yeah, Townshend's totally OTM there, but I think the problem also lay somewhat with Grand Funk; they wouldn't say "smash the city." Grand Funk wasn't gonna challenge their audience. That's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but I don't think the blame lay entirely with the audience(s).

to be fair, 50% of grand funk's songs were protest songs.

Really? Cool, I didn't know that. It's like what I was saying about my Chicago debut album discovery:

The double-LP album's inner cover includes—in addition to the playlist—the entire lyrics to "It Better End Soon", and two declarations: "This album should be experienced sequentially", and, "With this album, we dedicate ourselves, our futures and our energies to the people of the revolution. And the revolution in all of its forms."

also to be fair, they were terrible at writing lyrics:

If we had a president, that did just what he said,
The country would be just alright, and no one would be dead,
From fighting in a war, that causes big men to get rich.
There's money in them war machines, now ain't this a bitch?

and their protest was more of a vague good-timey kinda protest. but the general theme of their music is dissatisfaction in general.

Live Album listed among the worst live records in The Book of Rock Lists

^ this is very sad. Goddamn, whatever lists there are in that book must be shit. Live Album fucking rules. One of the best live albums ive ever heard.

i like them a lot. they are actually more varied than the radio hits would lead you to believe. they could be dopey, but their albums are very entertaining and honest to gosh funky too at times.

― scott seward, Friday, October 18, 2013 2:09 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally agree. The first three or four albums totally slay. Dont let the "Locomotion" turn you off, that's not representative of Grand Funk. They declined once they got the keyboardist in.

Grand Funk would be a pretty sweet band for this kind of treatment.

Grand Funk wasn't gonna challenge their audience.

^according to some old sages who were around at the time ive spoken with and would know, nobody got the crowd lathered up as much as Grand Funk on a good nite

yeah that epigram always amused me: Chicago's future included revolutionary tracts like "hard for me to say I'm sorry"…

grand funk were despised by the crit intelligensia (marsh, bangs, marcus) for, probly, catering to the kids and blue collar folks who came up right after '67-'69. They had the teenage burnout audience to themselves (maybe Alice Cooper). No big band would be as viscerally disdained until Kiss, a band notably unbeloved by many contributing here. Chad kroeger was on Howard stern with his wife Avril this week, and a lot of listeners complained: "nickelback sucks" etc…Howard said reminded him that in the early-mid 70s you had to hate GFR, cuz Mark Farner was indeed shirtless. Maybe Nickelback, who I don't despise, will be regarded more kindly, in that it seems to me most people dislike their lumpen proletarian audience, rather like GFR forty years ago.

I just got Detroit Rock city, an oral history of detroit rawk from my wife, who gets a lot of free books, and a quick jump through discloses that either Wayne or Dennis feel like if they were managed better or did less titanic amounts of heroin, that the Five woulda had GFR's audience. I don't like to play "they coulda been contenders" but the idea of MC5 being as big as the Who please me. Nothing against GFR, they just always seemed dull.

and just as I'm writing this, the Haim song with "Heartache Tonight" beat comes on…

D'oh, you're right. I hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

Eh, lots of google results for "bone" anyways. Also many spellings of "Mel Shocker", grrr

wait
veronica moser is not a woman? maybe she is a woman with a wife?

Theres no question that elitism plays a part in Grand Funk's reputation with the "intelligentsia" (if intelligence can be used to describe a scumbag like Dave Marsh).

Fuck em all, Grand Funk sounds good to these ears. Definitely not dull and definitely not like Nickelback.

Actually Marsh liked GFR for awhile (or pretended to) before leaving Detroit for RS and Springsteen worship. "E Pluribus Funk" made his '71 top ten! [/pedantic Creem archivist]

I just got Detroit Rock city, an oral history of detroit rawk from my wife, who gets a lot of free books, and a quick jump through discloses that either Wayne or Dennis feel like if they were managed better or did less titanic amounts of heroin, that the Five woulda had GFR's audience. I don't like to play "they coulda been contenders" but the idea of MC5 being as big as the Who please me. Nothing against GFR, they just always seemed dull.

fwiw, the Who was the only band that the MC5 didn't blow off the stage at the Grande (I think they agreed it was a draw).

From the perspective of 2013 it might seem ludicrous that the MC5 coulda been as big as the Who or GFR, but Kick Out The Jams charted higher than any Who album had at that point. And while the single only reached the high 80s in the Hot 100 chart, it was #1 in Detroit.

And I don't aggressively hate GFR or anything, and any band that can get a crowd up is ok by me. But getting a crowd boogieing is one thing; getting them boogieing while simultaneously drawing the ire of the FBI is another. I guess that's more what I mean by challenging an audience -- or inspiring an audience to challenge.

lol grand funk derailthread

Grand Funk would be a pretty sweet band for this kind of treatment.

― One Way Ticket on the 1277 Express (Bill Magill), Friday, October 18, 2013 1:36 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

good idea

"Veronica moser", per ILM and a few other online fora, is a man. The real Veronica Moser is a notorious female star of german pornography. The words "german pornography" should be a significant heads-up that one googles that name at their peril.

another band that would be pretty cool to do this with would be Genesis IMO. lot of ground to cover.

ooo Genesis would be great.

grand funk records are enjoyable. they're fun to hear! i have a best-of in the store that i listen to (a later one) that mixes in stuff that isn't remembered today and, along with their canny cover choices, its solid all the way through. i like their sound and the early stuff rocks hard, but i will go along with the critics when it comes to their actual lyrics which could be REALLY really dumb and almost sub-literate at times. they were just lazy in the writing department. even by hard blooze rock standards. the MUSIC they wrote wasn't bad though.