Defend the indefensible: Blues Traveler

[Wait five seconds. I'm sure someone will disagree.]

I think the biggest difference for me between Phish and Spin Doctors/Blues Traveler/et al is that Phish A) went somewhere with their improvisations, and B) actually fucking ROCKED occasionally, whereas the folks they're compared to have never, ever once done anything that could by even the longest stretches of the imagination be dubbed 'rocking'.

wow. i actually just TRIED to think of an entirely unembarrassing song by them to mildly justify my fondness, but i cant at all. 100% nostalgic-love.

Thanks, Jer
Thanks, Pop
Thanks, Pep
Thanks, Jim
Thank you, Hip
Thanks, Les
Thanks, Fatso

he didn't even wait to get it into the barrel?

man, i can't stand how john popper plays harmonica. they'd be fairly innocuous if it wasnt for that awful awful sound.

This dragged itself unbidden out of the depths of my memory this morning.

When she wakes it seems so shady
She remembers she's a lady
Ah but could it be that maybe
She was having lots of fun
She sees she's wearing leather
In her navel there's a feather
She just has to crack a smile
And close her eyes, her prayer begun

After The Cleveland Plain Dealer noted that Popper was scheduled to speak on gun rights at Washington’s National Press Club, he sent the paper 22—22!—tweets clarifying his desire to preserve the second amendment. Though his arguments are a little iffy—for instance, he insists that an armed public somehow limited what the KKK did in the old South—they’re an interesting read all the same. A full transcript of the tweets is pasted below. As a bonus, readers get to find out his views on “fetis” [sic] rights and abortion, because who wouldn’t want to know what John Popper thinks about that?

http://www.avclub.com/articles/read-this-blues-traveler-singer-john-poppers-22twe,98528/

Due to booking deals and whatnot, Blues Traveler always seemed to find its way onto Lollapalooza since it became a stand-alone event. The first year, I had solid sources tell me that Perry was all but begging Patti Smith to "jam" with Blues Traveler, but she was having none of it.

Man, there are five of them now?

R.I.P. Bobby Sheehan.

The Washington Post Arts editor (who is a big baseball fan) tweeted that he was counting the days until he no longer had to see ads for the Blues Traveler post- Washington Nationals game concert.

Whenever people talk about Cat Power by her irl name, my thoughts always go to Blues Traveller guitarist Chan Kinchla. Also whenever people talk about chinchillas.

What in god's name

http://www.thedailybeast.com/john-popper-from-blues-traveler-will-not-stop-posting-aerial-pictures-of-my-house

he seems nice

isn't Popper a gun nut conspiracy theorist type

http://www.wetlands-preserve.org/old/photos/images/JohnPopperKnife.jpg

The group changed their name to Blues Traveler, taking the latter part from the name of the primary demon in the film Ghostbusters, Gozer the Traveler.

popper's memoir, aptly titled
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51-nXb%2BpqmL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

he's turning into elwood blues even in silhouette.

If I were to ever meet Jack White, first I would tell him how much I loved his performance in High Fidelity. Then I would tell him how much I love his music and launch into singing Blues Traveler’s “hook” at him.

The first bit is funny (or at least as funny as asking Ryan Adams to play "Summer of 69"). Not sure I get the second bit?

i’ve spent far too much of my life having “runaround” stuck in my head

decent lyric about getting friendzoned tho

idk why i’m paying attention to blues traveler lyrics except that i have the faintest memory of an mtv special that tried very hard to sell john popper as a good lyricist

“hook” is a great melody but the lyric is the kind of self-conscious post-modern ok soda shit that didn’t age out of the ‘90s well at all

I kept expecting to find out he was in DC on Jan 6

otm

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jqYBTAtt9LU/RfA3O5_u6nI/AAAAAAAAAHg/nBHz63AHRlw/s320/Popper.jpg

There was a couple good songs on that one big album if I recall.

the “rapping” part in “hook” is pretty cool

I kept expecting to find out he was in DC on Jan 6

nah he's skinny now

I bought travelers and rogues or whatever that album was called back in the day, it was really long

Travelers and Thieves and Save His Soul were the two Blues Traveler albums that I was completely on board for. Their lyrics and harmonical aptitude were treated with reverential solemnity by all the hippies at my high school. In 1994, they year they really broke, I got a bad ear infection from swimming in a river the day before the H.O.R.D.E. Festival came to my town. I held myself together through most of the day, but Popper's harmonica solos became genuinely torturous to my ears on that night and I've never looked back.

Absolutely did not remember the "Hook" rap.

Lol they were so bad but Jesus Hook was everywhere at the college I went to freshman year so I have a soft spot for it. Also they were in Kingpin.

It’s a universal law that whenever I enter a Target, “runaround” will come on

I've wondered how good the royalties are for '90s acts that made it to the grocery store radio circuit. I was traumatized by Sixpence None The Richer's two hits playing twice an hour each at the grocery store I worked at for almost two years and I still hear "Kiss Me" regularly.

Is Safeway Inc. paying The Cardigans' mortgages?

the rap is the best part of “hook”

the second song on the second feelies album sounds like “runaround”

They givin you the runaround

The only true performance of "Hook"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xmcI2g0bEc