'Marquee Moon' LP is overrated

i've listened to this album 400 million times more than marquee moon

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/t1.0-9/1798690_10152969085967137_4370108828989930519_n.jpg

i've listened to this album 500 million more times than the numbers band album

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ7Lzg4768PkZVnehJkZa3Lj-DEWVKqALFwcvujbHpFVnUtIu7ghg

i always forget that my 3rd favorite band of all time FELT was always compared to television so maybe i like television more than i think. they got their name from television even. apparently.

Numbers Band is great. I have no need to defend Television, as there will always be a million people who prefer Grateful Dead or Allman Bros. or whatever to them, doesn't matter. But regarding upthread, Live at the Old Waldorf is nice, but even better sounding is a 1982 solo show that includes a great version of "Marquee Moon" included in The Miller's Tale compilation. Totally recommended.

I just read the Cheetah Chrome book last month, which has a fair amount on the super early Ohio scene, and a few months before that, Richard Hell's book. I can never read too much about the NYC 70s scene. It's hard to say it's overrated when your average non-geek music fan still have no clue who the Voidoids are, and sometimes even Television. Looking forward to seeing them for the first time in 22 or more years in a few weeks!

I definitely want to read all about Crocus Behemoth's early rants, whether in a White Castle or practice space.

my bff's mom dated a guy in the numbers band!!

yeah just between early Devo and Ubu anecdotes you've got an awesome book already.

the only time i saw dave thomas he marched the whole band offstage mid-set to yell at them.
then he got mad at the crowd and forbid any merch to be sold.

haha, yeah, the guy is a hoot! definitely has stage presence though.

haha pardon this digression but: i thought you were talking about dave thomas from wendy's, and james a rhodes (former repub governor and all around jerkwad) was an early stockholder in wendy's iirc and that's why i was NEVER allowed to eat there as a kid

this picture features a pin with a suitcase featuring the initials JAR, which was meant to imply "go away JAR" but again, the joke is kind of lost to the mist of time

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6ab8dtCxJ1rzge1ho1_1280.jpg

i saw the numbers band a month or two ago. they're welcome back to nyc any time. i bet chrissie hynde must've learned her harmonica chops off that guy. the kidney brother who plays harmonica. he was pretty fierce.

i can't believe all the shitty music there is in the world and we're pitting awesome nyc mid/late 70s music against awesome mid/late 70s ohio music

come on ppl. let's uplift rock n roll. each one teach one.

yeah we could just listen to this amazing tape of television in Cleveland, 1975
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNxQM8Sl1Kg
rocket from the tombs opened
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZLfG_KDLA

damn that woulda been a show

if it was a shared dressing room maybe one of the biggest bunch of weirdos in one room ever

from what i've read about it, i think it was really awkward. RFTT might've broken up right after this?

i'd lay money on really awkward

but yeah, both of those sets have to be some of the better rock n roll made in the 70s. cleveland and NYC unite!

when we work together great things can happen!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbVGX4r5gmE

LL that anti-JAR button is now a deliciously vexing non sequitur! I love it!

Life is v confusing with the avant-garage Dave Thomas and the burgermeister Dave Thomas and the SCTV Dave Thomas and god knows how many other dave thomases out there making art and running companies and murdering ppl & c & c

Last time I heard this was when I was browsing at the Notting Hill Book exchange, then the guy started playing a computer game halfway through so you had all of these sound effects crossed w/Guiding Light I think. Like he ws passing a judgment on it.

I need to get that Mars record.

I had a dream this was playing in a store recently

I think it was a dream. I have a distinct memory of hearing it but the store that comes to mind in association with this memory doesn't seem familiar. I'm losing it

It took me 25 years to get into this album. AND IT WAS WORTH EVERY MINUTE.

the only time i saw dave thomas he marched the whole band offstage mid-set to yell at them.
then he got mad at the crowd and forbid any merch to be sold.

― Raptain Chillips (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, April 7, 2014 4:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha, yeah, the guy is a hoot! definitely has stage presence though.

― tylerw, Monday, April 7, 2014 4:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Saw Dave twice; first time was with RFTT (with Richard Lloyd, who killed). He sat down most of the set, chugging from a bottle of Courvoisier. After the show, he personally sold CDs, still sitting on the stage. He did this to get around the venue's policy of taking 20% of all merch sales. I said something like, "I love your work" and he said, "OK. Whaddya want?"

Second time I saw him was when Pere Ubu did a live soundtrack to The Man With The X-Ray Eyes. It was pretty great, but Dave kept wildly "conducting" the rest of Ubu, who would have none of it, and completely ignored his gesticulations (e.g., he would make a dramatic "cut-off" signal, and they just kept going).

That live soundtrack to The Man With X-Ray Eyes was great. Thomas stood outside after the gig and basically just glared at people. I thought about telling him how cool it was, but he did not look interested at all.

answer to thread question: absolutely, i think this album is terribly overrated. i never got it at all. there is so much noodling, so much guitar wankery leading nowhere on it. the trackss are too long and too unimaginative. i wouldn't call it pretentious, i just find it terribly boring and uninteresting. i preferred the comeback album to "marquee moon".

i knew i had answered this before, couldn't find my post as it was a skipped message...

Well, you know, whatever floats your boat, or sinks it in this case... Patti Smith's the one I've never quite got

i really liked the feelies anyway. they must have been big television fans. i REALLY liked the feelies in the 80's. oh i know the minutemen! i don't love them in the same way i don't love television. people who really like television probably really like the minutemen too. just a guess. pretty much everyone i know and hang out with likes the minutemen a bunch. (when i was a kid i liked the project mersh ep and their van halen cover and "little man with a gun in his hand".) (i don't think i've ever made it all the way through double nickles...) (so add minutemen to young marble giants, the saints, and television when it comes to bands i have tried hard to like and never loved...)

Really dont get how this album = meandering wankery.

Everything on this album is there for a reason

yeah it's always felt extremely composed to me, not jammy

the alternate takes on the reissue are interesting because the solos are not vastly different, but different enough to a) verify that there was a bit of improvisation or trying new things in each takes and b) they really picked the right takes, the other ones just didn't have the magic of the ones on the album.

i love the minutemen but i don't love television, as mentioned. tbh even though i love double nickels a lot, i don't think i've ever listened to it all the way through. it's 80 minutes! 40+ tracks! i tend to listen to it in chunks. that doesn't negate my love for it

i never thought television was meandering wankery. maybe it would be better if it was

i love tv but don't love the minutemen. i like them; they like boc so how could you not like them? i know what you mean, the mathiness, though. i think i love tv with the same genes that make me love yes.

the bruford/ficca gene.

that's kind of the root of my problem with the television album. i have based a large part of my existence on 70's riff rock (of all stripes) and that album is just low on my list as far as that goes. i love the two nerd bird riffs a bunch (which is why the roir blow up tape is the only thing i owned for years), but in comparison to the sheer volume and wealth of amazing 70's stuff i just found it...slighter than the stuff i love? (i always liked the composed and deliberate quality the album has though. fussy even. but in the end i'll take "city slang".)

can you name a few albums we should be checking out?

haha, i think that's all i've done on here for ten years. i definitely like VU via detroit via new jersey. wonder if the feelies were starz fans?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn3ADSvZRa0

dunno, those riffs sound great to me. xgau isn't always otm, but i like this: "I don't ask much from life--a classic new rhythm guitar figure at medium-fast tempo like the one on "See No Evil" can keep me going for months. When the call-and-response chorus of the song that follows peaks at a perfectly timed "Huh?" I begin to act silly. And when two consecutive albums, eight songs each, offer a total of 16 unmistakable ident riffs, I apply hyperbole first and ask questions afterward."

and i think it's doubtful the feelies were starz fans? i think you can tell pretty much what the feelies are fans of from the songs they've covered over the years.

This thread inspired me to listen to Richard Lloyd's "Real Time" for the first time in years. I still really like it though it's not as good as Tom's solo stuff. I've never heard the studio versions of these songs, I assumed he was better live.

Television are super hyped though.

Peopl freak out over them. They're "good" but not great

around the 1:48 mark and after on "detroit girls" is kinda what i live for. in life. my math skills aren't very advanced though.

i really want to hear a starz cover by the feelies now.

yeah it's always felt extremely composed to me, not jammy

i once saw starz/rush/bob seger at the palladium. just sayin. after rush played this whole row of kids raised their arms and screamed "black sabbath!" and walked out on the silver bullet band.

i really like the painterly autumnal aspect of mm. it's like they're saying, hey, we're these sorta repressed aesthetes, we can't compete with the riff rockers, we'll just sit here with our legs crossed over our little jazz amps and build this here cathedral. on the one hand that's totally elitist so i can understand why the haters hate. on the other hand, unlike so many other repressed aesthetes, they did build the cathedral.