The Band.

Not sure how long Danko and Manuel would have lasted with a massive influx of disposable income tbh.

Ringo will outlive Paul.

Somebody just texted me with the same remark and got me thinking how Ringo is 83 and has looked the same for the last 20 years, and how that is definitely not the case with Paul.

Josh, those have to be by Jon Langford, right?

Yep! I've only bumped into him casually now and then, but way back when I dropped him a line when I saw him post a picture of the Band piece. When I went to his studio he apologized and said it was a one-off and sold already, but then he realized he had the means to make a second one. Got lucky, 'cause it's cool.

I'm on another, sports-based message board and people keep posting songs from Robbie's debut as evidence of his genius and I can't overstate how terrible I think these songs all are.

Is there a single redeeming quality to that first solo record? I haven't heard the whole thing, but the songs I've heard are just...inept. I remember laughing out loud when I first heard "American Roulette."

To respond to something I think I saw upthread, I think his guitar playing did deteriorate over the years along with his songwriting. Dunno if this is challops or not, but I don’t really even like that Claptonesque solo in The Last Waltz.

Sorry, Claptonesque is the wrong word.

I guess if there’s a lesson to be learned it’s that some creative people are only as good as the company they keep whereas others have more of a portal to the seemingly bottomless well of inspiration inside

Good piece on Garth:

https://defector.com/the-last-of-the-band

Rod Stewart rescued "Broken Arrow" in '91:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d-BGmHVFa0

"Somewhere Down the Crazy River" is one of the worst songs I've ever heard.

OTFM about Rod Stewart's cover, his best of the decade imo.

"Crazy River" was played CONSTANTLY on Much Music in Canada and boy was it annoying. Peak Lanois pretentiousness. 17 year old me only watched the video to see Maria McKee (what was she doing there in the first place?!). Canadian media continues to fawn over that album, and CBC played the video again last night on their national news obit.

oh yeah, I was thinking about Broken Arrow, but wondering why in my mind it had better vocals than Robertson's version.

"Somewhere Down the Crazy River" is one of the worst songs I've ever heard.

YES. For the life of me, I can't figure out why so many people single that out as the album's highlight (or for many people, the ONLY highlight). I have no proof that Lanois's story is bullshit, but it sure sounds like bullshit - is that really a surreptitious recording of Robertson telling a story? Regardless of whether or not it is, it sounds horribly self-conscious, as if Robertson thinks he's doing some great Southern mythology shit when it's just some hammy crap fit for a beer commercial.

The RR album was a key piece of the late 80s Wilbury Era.

Lanois's story for reference:

...to hear co-producer Daniel Lanois tell it, the song happened by accident. “I had presented him with this toy instrument…like an electric autoharp. He found a little chord sequence with it that was sweet and wonderful. As he was developing his chord sequence I recorded him and superimposed his storytelling, which I was secretly recording, on top,” Lanois told the Canadian music site Exclaim in 2007. “It’s kind of like a guy with a deep voice telling you about steaming nights in Arkansas. So I presented it to him and he went, ‘Whoa, how did this happen?’”

misread that as "streaming rights in Arkansas"

It's worse: it sounds like a failed attempt to write a Michelob commercial.

"Sorry Robbie...try the guys handling the Zima account!"

That first album is about a year early to qualify for the Poppy Bush Interzone, but it wasn't a great seller (or, rather, it sound at Band levels, i.e. certified gold) and...did those singles get heavy MTV/VH-1 play? I know old fart P&J voters loved both his solo albums enough to list them, but he wasn't omnipresent like the Wilburys.

xpost It's an Omnichord, a Lanois/Eno secret weapon. You can hear it all over Lanois's solo stuff (and also U2). Like here:

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

"Crazy River" also has a really cool Manu Katche drum part.

By contrast Katche is hysterically emphatic all over "Fallen Angel" -- the first time I thought, "Whoa, chill out, dude!"

Elvis Costello, a massive fan of The Band, had a pretty good take on that solo debut: "it was like he decided to make a Peter Gabriel album, whereas his songwriting was much more interesting and enigmatic when he was working on that smaller scale. It's almost like the best songs on the record are the ones that operate on that scale but have then been artificially inflated with steroids to become this widescreen Peter Gabriel music."

That first album is about a year early to qualify for the Poppy Bush Interzone, but it wasn't a great seller (or, rather, it sound at Band levels, i.e. certified gold) and...did those singles get heavy MTV/VH-1 play? I know old fart P&J voters loved both his solo albums enough to list them, but he wasn't omnipresent like the Wilburys.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, August 10, 2023 12:47 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I never once saw a Robertson video, except for just now watching "Crazy River," which I assume is a parody of the actual video. But WXRT in Chicago played 3-4 songs from that album all the goddamn time. I will only be baffled that the reaction to those songs isn't/wasn't universally, "What the hell happened to him?! Is that even the same guy who wrote 'The Weight'?"

lol at Elvis Costello throwing implied shade at Gabriel

Wilbury-era is what I call the zone from 87-91 or so when a bunch of oldsters put out high profile albums that got good reviews in Rolling Stone.

Checking wiki, "Showdown At Big Sky" was a #2 Mainstream Rock hit, while "Crazy River" hit #24 there (and #15 Pop in the UK!).

XP ...and benefited from boomers getting CD players.

Robertson could've let Manuel or Danko sing "Crazy River" or "Broken Arrow" and I'd hear what David Fricke or whoever did.

Lanois OTM about the steaming part.

Speaking of Elvis, there’s a funny story about The Band showing up at the Brinsley Schwarz compound to rehearse. The Brinsleys sat around and gaped until Bob Andrews just couldn’t contain himself and went up to Garth and said something like “you don’t have any idea how great you really are,” at which point Garth immediately got up and said “I guess it’s time to go” and that was it.

In a true "We're not in Kansas anymore" moment, Robertson appeared on SNL again in '92 to promote Storyville, a week after Nirvana's legendary first appearance on the show.

wait, the "Brinsley Schwarz compound" ??

the chilli willi homesteading

Good piece on Garth:

https://defector.com/the-last-of-the-band🕸

They lived in a communal house and had a rehearsal place in an old barn or something, just like, just like…it’ll come to me.

the chilli willi homesteading

The Ducks Deluxe Expanse.

Rancho Roogalator

there it is

Garth Vader... more machine than man, now.

Also Costello's Band fandom was centered on Danko iirc

It was centered on EC growing a beard

Thread just became loltastic with this last string of posts.

PK, he said he did it to scare people.

Did The Band scare people? I feel like Garth and Richard and Rick and Levon - beards and all - would be basically cuddly teddybears if you interacted with them one-on-one.

If I have a time machine I would probably want to give Richard Manuel a hug. I would not say that of Bob Dylan.

I feel like Garth and Richard and Rick and Levon - beards and all - would be basically cuddly teddybears if you interacted with them one-on-one.

Be ready to knee their balls if they've had a few bottles of Wild Turkey.

Lol

Or: tell that to Todd Rundgren!

Ok lol Alfred.

Anyway Xp to President Keyes - in case it was unclear I mean EC growing a beard. In the Extreme Honey liner notes he says "...start to grow hair and beard. Seems to scare people, so grow it longer."

it is fair to say that EC has never let go, or at least has had trouble letting go of, his disdain for the dinosaurish 70s rock people that immediately preceded him and the other spittle flecked class of 77 guys… strongly dislikes Led Zeppelin and for that matter the kind of expensive, very processed ethic associated with Petey G.