Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

Upright bass is fine. Electric fretless bass sounds like sped up whale call.

no, literally no instruments have a "this sounds like THIS" character, everything is down to usage and context.

y’all have taught yourselves to hate fretless bass

Lou Reed's later stuff has a lot of problems, but Fernando Saunders makes it unlistenable.

― Cow_Art, Thursday, July 28, 2022 3:02 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

come on

brad otm teaching myself to unhate it was great fun though.

when i think of fretless i think of japan, who rule. that is all.

japan+jaco so very crucial to "getting it" wrt fretless ebass

good call on Japan

Hejira rules, 30% b/c of Jaki imho

xxxxpost You find all of this unlistenable?

with Lou Reed
The Blue Mask (1982)
Legendary Hearts (1983)
Live in Italy (1984)
New Sensations (1984)
Mistrial (1986)
Set the Twilight Reeling (1996)
Perfect Night: Live in London (1998)
Ecstasy (2000)
The Raven (2003)
Animal Serenade (2004)
Berlin: Live at St. Ann's Warehouse (2008)
Film
A Night with Lou Reed (1983)
Coney Island Baby: Live in Jersey (Lou Reed) (1987)
Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart (1998)
Lou Reed: Live at Montreux (2000)
Prozac Nation (2001)
Spanish Fly: Lou Reed Live in Spain (2005)
Berlin: Live at St. Ann's Warehouse (Lou Reed-Julian Schnabel) (2008)

yah really

Yes

But maybe it's just because I myself stll rely on the training wheels of actual frets.

There’s a few there that I haven’t tried, but I have had most of those and sold them back. Apart from the occasional song, everything about his sound went sour.

The kids summer camp is about 35 minutes away and we’ve been doing some focused listening to classic albums. My girls are very taken with Blue. In the middle of River the 7 year old asked “Why is it so sad?” They ask me questions and I’ve laid the narrative out for them.

<3

y’all have taught yourselves to hate fretless bass

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, July 28, 2022 9:25 PM

new permanent board description

second.

xxxxxxxp That's the bulk of my favorite Lou Reed records outside of the Velvet Underground.

Back to Joni, my introduction was really Court and Spark - still a favorite - but Blue came next. I can't tell you how many times I've put on that record in the midst of some horrible thing happening around me (not a particular sociopolitical event, just a sad state of affairs between people) and it felt like this music is by someone who knows, who would totally get what's happening and have complete empathy for it.

Some of you need some ECM in your lives. Namely Eberhard Weber.

fretless bass rules

but to get back on track,

I didn't get into Heijera right away, partly because I knew "Coyote" from The Last Waltz - in retrospect that wasn't a great way to discover the song.

the saunders lou reed band was literally the best band he ever had, reflexive hating on fretless is phoned-in silliness, most of thread otm

well, there was a time he had Metallica

Man, if he'd gotten with the Cliff Burton Metallica---!

The Cliff Burton Dave Mustaine Metallica, even.

And Joni. (Who might have liked Fernando too.)

Slayer's still around. WTF Lou, you missed your chance!

(or was still around)

Srsly, I could see Mitchell and Reed getting together later on, at least for a little while, with Saunders or RIP Rob Wasserman, say.

https://pitchfork.com/news/joni-mitchell-announces-new-asylum-albums-1972-1975-box-set/

Fernando Saunders’s octave figure on “Waves Of Fear” is one of the greatest moments in Lou’s post-‘70s work.

^^^^^^^^^^

My favourite Fernando Saunders with Lou moment: the bass solo at the end of "Ecstasy".

Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, Austin, Texas, January 1976.
📷Norm Beitch pic.twitter.com/xLrY2BmucN

— Lonesome Suzie (@NathalieO5) August 1, 2022

Was wondering if she played any w Rolling Thunder--search led me to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeaO5UZ5OcI

1975 fundraiser at Lightfoot's house, here she's with Dylan and McGuinn

No unreleased music on this new box set, damn :(

Her adjustment of "Baby Blue":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzGD4eTifPk

this is just another of the regular LP series boxsets, there should be a separate archives one of the unreleased stuff too at some point

I'm more lenient about Joni Mitchell changing the chords (and words) to "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" than when the 13th Floor Elevators did the same.

XP - Oh thank goodness!

Yeah, and as the YouTube poster mentioned, Dylan himself had already been changing some of his songs in live performance.

Her first song to gain prominence was ‘Urge For Going’, which Tom Rush recorded as a single in 1966.

The song’s an account of winters in Saskatoon, Canada, where Mitchell grew up, a town subject to extreme temperatures, with warm summers and freezing winters.

"When winter comes along and the farms are all harvested and they don’t really have much to do if they don’t keep cattle. So most of them have winter houses in the Bahamas and Florida and they just escape, you know, to all the warm places like Philadelphia. [laughter] The rest of the people who have to stay there feel sort of like this…"

Joni Mitchell

Rush's version conveys the distinctiveness of her songwriting, the way she already had everything lashed together, nothing strained.

So does her version, but in 1966, people must have said, "Damn, who wrote that?"

Canada: this is not the rush youre looking for…

[laughter]

I also initially read it that way! I mean, Nazareth found success with This Flight Tonight...

Oh, I can totally hear Geddy Lee singing "Urge for Going"! GL & Lifeson should do a Joni tribute album---maybe they could get the first Rush drummer, if he's still around.

Or they could host an all-Canada tribute set: get Randy Bachman, Corb Lund, Terri Clark, Bruce Cockburn, Blue Rodeo, Nelly Furtado, Drake, Colter Wall, Neil Young---who else?

Arcade Fire? Kinda boring, but maybe with the right material---? that's one of the best things that can happen on tribs: when somebody you've written off rises to the occasion, finally not culturally deprived by their own songs.

Re-unite Northern Lights!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears_Are_Not_Enough

Sarah McLachlan has already recorded covers of "Blue" and "River".