In Which Doctor Casino Listens to Classic Rock Classics for the First Time

Multiple x-posts: careful who you're calling hipster, son.

am i about to be challenged to a duel?

Hang your Seger regressivism on any tree, geek.

Okay, before this explodes into a rockin' barroom brawl: Fire Down Below!

Yeah, this is all right. Maybe I'm predisposed to like it based on this other quality Seger, but it's sounding really good on headphones, nice solid recording of some nice solid playing. Not so into this 'list of people' kinda songwriting, adds up to a kind of bland scenario: they're different people, but they're alike! Seems like you could get to the same point with a little more interrelationships in the story, the banker could be casting shade at the poor man before he's taken over by the fire down below. What's this about again? Strippers? Or they're not all at the same place, I guess, some are in Berkeley and some are in Queens? Somewhere there's somebody ain't treatin' somebody right... wait, what's going on? I thought the fire was going to be about sex but is it actually wrath? What these guys have in common is not treating somebody right?

Wow, that was baffling. The one! two! three! into the solo has renewed my interest though. Another kinda sudden ending - my one lasting beef with Rock & Roll Never Forgets (now that I've listened to it like seven times in the last twelve hours) is how it just wanders away from the last chorus and ends without fanfare - surely if rock and roll never forgets, it'd show the 31-year-old sweet sixteen a better time than that. In this one it just seems like they ran out of energy, time or ideas - gimme a little more solo, a little more 'fire' at least.

Second listen, hoping I can follow the story a little better. The rock-n-rolling is probably strong enough to carry it just as an instrumental, with Seger's rasping as just another instrument, so in any case this isn't killing my interest in picking up the album. So, okay, there are street lights, here come these girls... what is this all about? Are they going to see a band? Why would all these lawyers and bankers be there? I feel like I'm lost in a pronoun here, the "it" that's never gonna stop. I do like that it happens in Moline, and I guess at this point I'm pretty sure this is about prostitution, an "oldest profession" kinda things... which makes the implications of bad treatment kinda grosser. At best I'd guess it's that the johns' wives aren't "treating them right" sexually but that's not very appealing as a narrative. Yeah, blame Mrs. Lockhorn... yeesh.

Thumbs up for the band, thumbs down for the lame lyric. "Fire down below" is too strong a phrase to get wasted on a lame cliche. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it really would have done well as another paean to the eternal appeal of rock: get all these horny men and women to the Bob Seger concert and let the music stoke the fires. Last verse could wrap up how the night ends up: Steve and Sally on the pinball table / Jack and Jill are in the john, etc. With a little rewrite here and there it could also have made a good Tums commercial.

chlamidya, iirc

:)

Another kinda sudden ending - my one lasting beef with Rock & Roll Never Forgets ... is how it just wanders away from the last chorus and ends without fanfare

this seems to have been a common feature of '60s and '70s rock, either through fades or other means, that doesn't seem to happen so much anymore, as if they realized they were about to run out of vinyl space and they better do something quick.

What these guys have in common is not treating somebody right?

yeah that's a weird, possibly creepy, possibly not, line, which makes things suddenly darker without offering much of a clue as to who, what or why. maybe a throwaway line. maybe not.

first time i ever heard "the fire down below" was at the boston garden, with 15,000 people screaming the title every time it came around. it was my first real rock concert, and it seemed unbelievably loud. it was the big singalong moment of the night. i had no idea what they were saying, but i wanted to join in. i asked my friend what everyone was saying and i couldn't hear him at all, so i started singing something like "she's got zfgfh gwyrwer unghf mirwoowgh!," and it felt good, and it seemed about right, so i kept singing it. i didn't find out the real words till the next morning.

Hahaha - "and it felt good, and it seemed about right, so i kept singing it" - have done this so many times and it's usually permanently affected my understanding of the song. A cover of "Boris the Spider" rendered it the haunting question: Who is the Spider?, "Gold Star For Robot Boy" was Can't stop the robot, boy!, etc.

The running-out-of-vinyl thing is pretty plausible tbh - I mean when it's a fade-out, presumably that suppresses a longer jam and makes the track the "right" length. (Or it just hides the moment when everybody screwed up or started arguing with each other, etc...)

I think the "not treating right" thing is creepy no matter what the plot is, but it's certainly way more creepy if we're to assume that the bankers, et al., are out there mistreating the prostitutes.

Possibly inspired Don or Glenn to write "Heartache Tonight"

HEARTACHE TONIGHT
GLENN: …and then they sold 12 million records, and everything changed! As Bob Dylan said, “They deceived me into thinking I had something to protect.” And that’s what happened with us. We made it, and it ate us. The Long Run became, indeed, the long run. It was a difficult record to make overall, but I loved “Heartache Tonight.” Whenever Bob Seger was in L.A., he always used to come over and visit me, and he’d visit Don, too, and play us stuff he was working on — and we would do the same. I seem to remember that I had the verse thing going on for “Heartache Tonight,” and I was showing it to Seger, and we were jammin’ — I think we were jammin’ on electric guitars at LaFontaine — and then he blurted out the chorus. That’s how “Heartache” started. Then Bob disappeared, and J.D., Don, and I finished that song up. No heavy lyrics — the song is more of a romp — and that’s what it was intended to be.

"Fire Down Below" definitely about prostitution, FWIW.

Listen how Seger kicks out the "COME" in the chorus - a pretty unambigous double-entendre if ever there was one.

having parked in detroit for our last two entries, let's step over the border and take a look around canada. this next song is considered by wikipedia (and, therefore, by most of the internet) to be the unofficial first song of the '80s, since it was side 1, track 1 of an album, permanent waves, released on jan. 1, 1980. the song was named for the slogan of toronto's cfny-fm, one of the few stations that played rush early in their career. at the time, cfny-fm was an alternative/modern-rock station. now they're "the edge" and they play new rock.

SONG #15: RUSH "THE SPIRIT OF RADIO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juv5Ifs2fFY

(dr. casino spoiler alert: this is one of those songs that, because of its title, you might have heard but not known what it was. so i guess we'll see.)

Slightly off-track but fuck the Rush song about the trees that are pissed off at each other, that is a huge Pittsburgh CR staple and OMG I hate it so much.

I think the fire down below is what Derek and Clive referred to as "the horn".

(spoiler alert 2: rush's "the trees" will not be featured on this thread.)

Yeah, that one's a stinker alright.

"The Trees" is some anti-union/anti-organizing bullshit.

"Spirit of Radio," though, is pretty great. Probably their best song (or at least neck-and-neck with "Tom Sawyer").

ILXor askance johnson and I were talking about what a lyrical turd "The Trees" is this past weekend. I had never listened to the lyrics closely enough to recognize it as a Randian paean to the superiority of oak trees. I just thought it was a dumb as hell song about trees, but askance set me straight. (lol)

I voted for Red Barchetta in the poll, even though that too is blatantly Randian. I think what makes The Trees so bad is that it's a dumb as hell song about trees.

I dont read the Trees as Randian. I think the lyrics are criticizing both the oaks and the maples. Red Barchetta is about a car and drinking by the fireside.

Red barchetta is more plain libertarian to me. And unlike the trees, it super slays.

So happy that my hatred for the pissed off trees is shared, I have found my people.

Peart has said that "The Trees" was just meant as a humorous song that was inspired by a cartoon about trees acting like people, not as a political statement. The break in 5 is awesome iirc but I'm surprised that this is a classic rock staple anywhere.

CI: The tune "Trees" from your Hemispheres album comes to my mind as you speak.

NP: Lyrically, that's a piece of doggerel. I certainly wouldn't be proud of the writing skill of that. What I would be proud of in that is taking a pure idea and creating an image for it. I was very proud of what I achieved in that sense. Although on the skill side of it, it's zero. I wrote "Trees" in about five minutes. It's simple rhyming and phrasing, but it illustrates a point so clearly. I wish I could do that all of the time.

CI: Did that particular song's lyrics cover a deeper social message?

NP: No, it was just a flash. I was working on an entirely different thing when I saw a cartoon picture of these trees carrying on like fools. I thought. "What if trees acted like people?" So, I saw it as a cartoon really, and wrote it that way. I think that's the image that it conjures up to a listener or a reader. A very simple statement.

I mean, I've read that too, but death of the author and all...

The Spirit of Radio: The spoilers are right - hard to get more than a quarter-second into this and not go "Oh, that!" Yes, I have heard this, many times. I have never paid any attention to it, though, so in the spirit of things I'll do that now.

The intro has this really unfortunate stop-start thing where they keep promising an awesome riff or a groove and then insist on doing a little half-stop and switching it up (this happens again periodically, especially towards the end, and I guess is them showing off their technical chops or something). Once we get to the verse, it's fine and all, but as with most of their stuff that I've heard there's a sort of thin quality - not just owing to Lee's shrill vocals, but just generally this band seems to have turned the bass/treble dial turned way over to the right. It's thus quite welcome when the bigger, more in-your-face guitars come back, there's a bedrock for the vocals to play off. Their guitar attack still has more tin and crackle in it than I might like, but maybe that's meant to make it feel "radio"-ish?

I wish I liked Rush more. I'd want to supporting eager, earnest, nerdy English-class bands bands who want to compose mini-epics about how cool it is that radio airwaves carry music on them. And yet somehow when it just gets down to the band doing their version of rocking out, I kinda just wanna hear "Dream Police" instead. Wow, I don't remember ever hearing this "words of the prophets" bit before, that's a little better though it doesn't actually benefit in any way from the Simon & Garfunkel allusion.

Well, so now I know what that's called.

Man, I already can't remember anything at all about that song except the opening guitar thing. As far as I know Rush are actually one long, hookless, picaresque performance of vaguely rock-oriented music, from which a record company periodically publishes excerpts, mislabeled as hit singles. Presumably, "The Spirit of Radio" addresses the soullessness of this system in some way. Hoping that some of the other ones they have coming up in this countdown strike me better.

i wish u liked rush more too, doc

*sigh*

I gave up trying to like Rush a long time ago. And I *like* nerdy semi-literate proggy shit. They're just so stiff.

;_;

i am, despite my username, agnostic about rush. never quite got their whole thing, but every so often i hear something that makes me want to know more. this made me laugh: one long, hookless, picaresque performance of vaguely rock-oriented music, from which a record company periodically publishes excerpts, mislabeled as hit singles.

we're going to stay proggy for another eight minutes or so. this is from the FOT (fairly obvious title) school of prog. no spoiler alert needed, i don't think.

SONG #16: YES "ROUNDABOUT"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkGzjIq4aZI

Doctor Casino so very OTM about everything that is wrong with Rush. I like that new wavey song they did with Aimee Mann, though. Geddy's voice is a whole lot more tolerable in the lower registers.

Oh, duh, I just found out why I like that Rush song. Peter Collins produced that album, and he also produced my favorite nerdy semi-literate proggy album of all time, Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime. So thank you Peter Collins for allowing me to like one Rush song.

sandy nooooooo

Man you Rush haters. I'm so mad I could pick up a bass and play the shit out of it.

and then i'm gonna sing in a really high pitched voice about temples & shit & blow yr fking minds

I feel like I've been drawn into too many Rush conversations on ILM in the last month, so I'm leaving this one alone.

VegemiteGrrl, extra points if you make the temples pissed off at each other

looool

One of my favorite things about "Roundabout": Many, many years ago (i.e. 1985-ish) Guitar for the Practicing Musician used to have a column where they'd have well-known guitar players listen to a bunch of songs and review them. I can't remember who it was in that month's column, but when this song came up, he said something to the effect of "This isn't a song you lose your virginity to. People lose their virginity to AC/DC. Nobody remembers losing it to 'Roundabout.'"

xpost I know folks have read "The Trees" as about Quebecois separatists! Though of course, as social commentary it is about as deep as AC/DC's "Big Balls."

Who in the world like "Operation:Mindcrime" but not Rush!?

As a mild at best Yes fan, "Roundabout" is awesome.

"This isn't a song you lose your virginity to. People lose their virginity to AC/DC. Nobody remembers losing it to 'Roundabout.'"

Ha, Dan Harmon (or maybe Jeff Davis) said something like that on his podcast about "Spirit of Radio" - "No one ever got off to 'of SALESmen!'"

Rush is a lot of things but "stiff" is not one of them.

TS: And the magic music makes your morning mood vs. I'm in the mood for a melody I'm in the mood for a melody I'm in the mood

Has Geddy Lee ever done "Spirit of Radio" live and sang "And the magic music makes your morning wood" and then given the audience a big, hammy wink and grin y/n?

TOO STIFF AMIRITE

LOVE that Rush song so much. Brings back memories of music school friends who rehearsed the drum parts to Rush albums. Also Modern Drummer magazine spreads of Neil Peart's opulent drum kits.

So, returning WAY upstream to Journey's "Separate Ways," there's a dude on the intertubes looking up and doing interviews with the women who appeared in a wide variety of 80s videos, and here he interviews, Margaret Oldsted Menendez, the woman from "Separate Ways." A taste:

What was it like making the video?

The first day on the wharf of the Mississippi River by the French Quarter was freezing. There were two Winnebagos, one for the band and another for production. Lots of people were hanging in the production RV. Everyone was friendly, saying Beverly Hillbillies lines—”Y’all come back nah, ya hear?” But in New Orleans, we have southern—not exactly hillbilly—charm. Still, it was laid back and entertaining.

The director called for the musicians. Suddenly the RV was empty. The nice, relaxed gentlemen who were so entertaining [turned out to be] the band, Journey. Immediately I was nervous and also thankful for living a life of bliss—it can save a shy person. Oh, one band member, Steve Perry, pretty much stayed to himself in his (the band’s) RV. The rest of the band continued to use our RV. I have pictures from that day and an autographed album and Steve Smith’s drumsticks, which were given to Chuck.

The second day of the shoot was perfect New Orleans weather. A touch of spring for the Mardi Gras season. I remember the band appearing later than was expected and seemingly confused. They [had gone] out the night before. What they couldn’t understand was why no one ever said “Last call!” Being a New Orleans girl, I couldn’t understand what a last call even was. They explained they were out all night because normal cities close bars and let everyone know that they are closing. But this was New Orleans, and Mardi Gras.

Roundabout: Woah. Not what I was expecting so far, from the awesome stoner space painting of the Youtube thumb. Like the long slow build and... woah! Get funky!

So uh yeah. Digging it. This is busy as all hell, stuff going every which way, almost to the point of feeling sloppy despite the very precise production. And shit...now it's another part. In and around a lake, mama's come out of the sky and you stand there, doodley doodley doodley... okay. ...actually I think this song kinda breaks the 'liveblog' approach - there is just way too much going on and too many parts happening to respond to them as they come (also I'm a little drunk), not in a bad way actually and OMG the squiggles at 2:25! This is great!

hahaha the total sonic barrage in the 3:20 range - oh and now these chanting people at 3:45, and just how many percussionists are getting paid for this? I like how kinda random and unrehearsed a lot of this feels, it's a trippy journey into the land of gnomes from outer space but I could believe that a lot of this was done on the first-take, it doesn't feel like every single note has been carefully placed there in a MIDI editor, yknow?

And yet for however motley and wonky the composition is, there's - - - oooh, rockin time again !!! (6:00), someone needs to tranquilize the organist in my right ear though.... just... y'know, simmer down a little. This totally OTT busy guitar part rules and ohhh shit, now everybody's starting to lock in together (6:30), keep on rockin', guys! And keep beating the organ guy out of the picture.

But yeah like I was saying, for however motley it is, this assemblage of things, there's definitely stuff that comes back, the "in and around the lake" segment and other stuff - - acting as anchors - - - "hooks," they could be called, but don't tell Rush about them. Daah da da da.... And it's over!

Well. That was a blast. I really gotta hit the sack otherwise I would totally be dedicating the next eight minutes of my life to listening to that again. Is this what prog rock was in 1971? So much less arch and arty than what I associate with the genre - much more just like drunk stoned rock goofery given even more room to spread out. But so bright and lively too, like we've shaken off the really sweaty, cloudy drag side of psychedelia and people are actually just really happy to make this kind of weird-ass music. Starts to pull together the turn of the 70s musical map a little more for me. Is it weird that it mainly makes me want to go listen to the Attila album again? Maybe it's just the organ.

Chronology is way off but I kinda want to compare it to Elfquest, not just because of the "burgeoning science fiction/fantasy bookstore scene" visuals but really more for the sensibility. Feels like they're really painting this little music world in miniature with teeny little brushes, but with open, serene smiles. So amazing that "Owner of the Lonely Heart" is where this journey leads - I do hear it in the abrupt changes, at least.

Thumbs up!

Yes to Yes, no to Rush

;_;