also i think that the music they minded about was music that ROCK AS IT BECAME AWARE OF ITSELF was trying to put behind it, or get beyond, or something
like in the late 60s, a LOT of music — pop and non-pop — from the 50s and early 60s was widely considered a bit of a primitive yokel joke: and i think they clung to it in quite a lonely, dogged way...
this later (80s etc) became for others a revivalist shtick which played super-well in music mags etc — grrr the clash haha — and part of the general dad-rock cd-rerelease spasm, but these were the years when rock was in its prime and needed no memory, or anyway a sense of its own HISTORY was not yet at all important to its essential identity
(sorry this probably isn't very clear: i think what i'm saying is that the content of "revival" in their name and aesthetic — partly bcz it wz half ironic, in a bitter sort of way — was that it refused to place faith in these huge PLACEMARKER WORKS, dylan/beatles/stones blah blah, which stood in the way of understanding where they themselves as works came from, and provided the glue of the music community all round, the values it shared...)
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 00:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 00:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 00:15 (twenty-one years ago) link
Guess I shouldn't have used the term "poseur" in the question then. But really, it's when the Stones were brought in that the "authenticity" topic raised its ugly head (mostly because for some reason people find the Stones' toying with the whole concept to be such a stroke of genius - though I don't share this view personally).
re: Mark S. I see what you're saying I guess. Regressive traditionalist attitude = anti-rockist. I like their albums but no argument that they were a singles band, their albums are not deliberately constructed as statements (a la Blonde on Blonde or Her Satanic Majesties' ad nauseum).
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 00:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 00:20 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 00:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― bflaska, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 00:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
i'm tempted to say that i don't think they thought about or cared about LASTING (possibly also why they got screwed over re ownership of their songs?) (i mean this may have been just naivety, and i don't mean to sentimentalise or romanticise some kind of po'boy live-in-the-now nonsense, but sometimes not second-guessing how the future will see you gives you access to a power to speak in the present which actually hands the future to you... )
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 00:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
The Fantasy/Saul Zaentz debacle is a whole other issue...
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 00:42 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ben Williams, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 00:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
at the height of the grunge fad, i do remember wondering why it was that Neil Young was getting all the credit for inspiring that sort of music but CCR weren't name-checked at all -- which struck me as odd because Green River kinda works in the same vein and is almost as "grunge"-y as Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. maybe it's because Fogerty always stuck to what worked and never did anything as left-field as Neil Young did?
― Tad (llamasfur), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 01:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Douglas (Douglas), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 01:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Clarke B. (emily), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 01:38 (twenty-one years ago) link
"if i only had a dollar for every song i've sung and ev´ry time I had to play while people sat there drunk ... " hard to beat that IMHO.
― Tad (llamasfur), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 01:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
Do Brits listen to bands like this? I think there's something uniquely American there that many of them don't hear or fimd interesting (because I don't hear them talk about these bands much). See also Los Lobos.
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 03:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jesse Fox, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 03:24 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Scott Seward, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 04:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Burr, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 04:59 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 05:05 (twenty-one years ago) link
I actually wish I could hear most of my favorite music this way--catch it by surprise--but the radio is just so awful at the moment, so I end up buying a lot of records. My favorite moments are those when I'm seized, for no reason I can articulate, by the desire to hear a very particular album or song, almost as though it had come to me by accident.
Oh, also, I had a conversation about CCR with a good friend last week. I saw the box set sitting on his table. I remember him telling me--maybe six or seven years ago-- that he couldn't stand John Fogerty's voice, that it was too obviously an affectation. I mentioned this, and he turned to me with a puzzled expression, and said basically, Oh no, I was stupid then, of course they're grebt. So I don't know anyone who's been able to sustain a dislike for this band for very long.
― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 07:22 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dan I., Wednesday, 29 January 2003 08:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Yes! Perhaps not 4, but I long for the days of an album or two a year. All that lovely filler and songs written by the drummer - all GRATE stuff!
― Dr. C (Dr. C), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 08:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 09:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 10:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Roger Fascist (Roger Fascist), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 10:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
I think there are quite a few Brits on here, myself included, who love CCR. And the 'uniquely American' thing isn't a hindrance (though you could prob argue the Beatles being part of their musical upbringing as with 95% of US bands of that era) - there's been an obsession with American music over here since at least the forties, not least the Beatles and Stones themselves.
Very interesting that you mention Los Lobos though, and you could have a point there. I've been thinking of starting a Los Lobos thread for a while as I've not encountered anyone over here who sees anything in them. And there is something similarly broad in their musical scope to the bands you mention (the Dead etc). For a Mexcian-American band the 'American' is at least as important as the 'Mexcian'.
― James Ball (James Ball), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 11:03 (twenty-one years ago) link
Where did I say they weren't conscientious about choosing their name? "somewhat bitter irony" = conscious deliberation. The use of the word "revival" was very deliberate, yes to ref. tent-preachers, and yes to invoke an aesthetic which said "the present is corrupt, the past it's where it's at" — except (here's where the deliberate irony kicks in) we CCR are the real present and so the PRESENT is where it's at.
If anyone's assuming that because I'm saying "hey this is pop not rock" I'm saying the makers didn't care a great deal about it, or that it matters less "artistically", then they're exactly missing the point of Fogerty's attitude to the "throwaway pop" of the 50s: that the work put into it that counted was work that was directed at the present, not work calculated to second-guess the future.
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 11:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 11:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dr. C (Dr. C), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 11:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 12:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 14:47 (twenty-one years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 16:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
I don't think this is really accurate, and this is why I brought up Fogerty's notorious controlling studio perfectionism - as evidence that they (or at least JF) *did* think and care about lasting. I don't think Fogerty was naive about what he was doing or what kind of myth he was trying to build. The point up-thread about the Berry-Fogerty-Springsteen progression of American "everyman" is pertinent here, he saw himself in - and acted to fit into - this kind of progression. In a sense, even getting screwed over the ownership of their songs does *more* to cement this kind of myth ("look! The Man is fucking with me!") although I'm sure that wasn't Fogerty's intention (to get screwed, that is).
I misunderstood your point about the "revival" in their name, sorry.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 18:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
― pauls00, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 18:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 18:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 18:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
I find it interesting that CCR is kind of viral -- lots of people who don't want to like 'em do anyway, and they slip completely from your conciousness only to sock you in the gut after random jukebox encounters. Why is that so?
it's obv. a circular argument, but perhaps this is why the CCR-are-classic camp would describe them as such.
― hstencil, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 18:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 19:12 (twenty-one years ago) link
― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 1 February 2003 18:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 1 February 2003 22:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 1 February 2003 22:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 1 February 2003 22:56 (twenty-one years ago) link
No comment, I just felt like reprinting that thought so that we could savor it.
"Love In Vain," "Country Honk," "Let It Bleed," "You Got the Silver," You Can't Always Get What You Want" = songs that would improve Let It Bleed by being absent.
CCR = Sexless, timid, lacking in experiment, hence not much at all like the music they were drawing on (compare "Green River" to Elvis's "Mystery Train"), though that doesn't make them a bad group, since those were limits that worked for Fogerty ("Green River" a real good song). Fogerty set songs in the South because he thought his own life in El Cerrito, California was boring, so preferred to write from his imagination. Well-loved by white people in Appalachia County, Virginia when I passed through in 1971. Black people there preferred James Brown. I was the only one to prefer "Brown Sugar." But neither CCR nor Stones defined rock by then. Hendrix, Cream, Zeppelin had changed the game.
The adjective "authentic" is close to useless unless paired with a word that it is modifying.
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 2 February 2003 01:45 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 2 February 2003 01:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ben Williams, Sunday, 2 February 2003 01:59 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 2 February 2003 02:08 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Genevieve, Sunday, 2 February 2003 02:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
(All the songs you list are amazing, ESPECIALLY "You Got The Silver": I sometimes prefer Keith as a vocalist to Mick)
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 2 February 2003 02:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Sunday, 2 February 2003 02:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
(But then if I had Let It Bleed on CD I might like it fine. Given the memory function, almost all my beloved CDs end up as four-song EPs. For instance, there are only three albums on my Pazz & Jop ballot this year that I listen to more than four songs on, and two of those three are near the bottom of my list.)
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 2 February 2003 03:21 (twenty-one years ago) link