In Which Doctor Casino Listens to Classic Rock Classics for the First Time

I have never ever heard Styx in my life. ever. I think.

only heard about 25% of these songs and I can barely remember how half of them go.

I don't live in America though, so that might be why.

I enjoy the classic rock I have heard though, so Dr. Casino's experience isn't totally unique.

It's not unique: I'm sure my parents wouldn't recognize any of these songs. It is a little surprising, though, that someone could have listened to this radio format a lot in the US/Canada, and be something of a fan, without knowing any of these songs, esp most of the ones that contenderizer singles out, given that they are frequently played on the format.

Renegade: Was worried I was semi-busted, certain things did sound naggingly familiar (especially the opening intonation). The big crunchy guitar part also rings a bell - but I'm sort of convinced I'm actually thinking of something on Physical Graffiti (?). Before finishing this post I listened to it a second time and I'm now pretty sure I don't know this.

So, this is one of those songs where the guitar riff and the vocal line match each other a lot. I'm usually not that into that, but at least here it gives some oomph to the parts where they break apart are pretty sweet - the "HIGHNESS OF MY HEAD" (?) for example. Oh mannn, this air-guitar moment right around 2:00, that's sweet!

The organ player is kinda bugging me off and on, feels busy, fussy, gotta fill the space - makes me appreciate the sorta goofy and robotic blurts of same in say, the verses of "Abacab." Oooooh, the WRREREEEEEEEEE synth sounds at 2:50 are awesome.

The Queen stomp-along after that with the falsettos is also great! Shades of "Come Sail Away" obviously, I think I like these guys best when they step up into being kinda alien/fantasy-ish and lose the trudging workaday dear mama, wanted man steeze, or maybe they need that for the other moments to come into focus...this seems very much like, first half is kinda lumpy and the vocals are distractingly hysterical on top of that, but then in the second half they're all going in and it clicks. I dig "Blue Collar Man" but it'd be better if it erupted into these sci-fi fireworks more. Overall I would give this a thumbs up, mainly for the second half.

"high price on my head" iirc?

But great review!

My second guess was "hairbrush on my head," like a "no comb has touched my head" kinda thing, he's a renegade with poor hygiene.

Tommy totally kills that 'HIGH PRICE ON MY HEAD'

sidenote that line is fking murder to sing on Rockband, fyi

xpost irl lols

The scream before the band kicks in is the best thing Dennis DeYoung has ever done, or will ever do.

otfm

the Physical Graffiti song you're thinking of is probably Trampled Under Foot, which does sound pretty similar.

TS: DeYoung being The Renegade vs. Phil Lynott being The Warrior.

Xpost yeah that's it, totally!

Great analysis

I (selfishly) want to hear thoughts on Limelight, Let My Love Open The Door, Stay, and ROUNDABOUT

great thread and i am wondering if like 50% of theses songs you're gonna totally be 'oh i know this' / 'i never knew [x] did this' and/or 'so that's what this is called'

The scream before the band kicks in is the best thing Dennis DeYoung has ever done, or will ever do.

Too true, and if it has never been used as a funky drummer type sample I'm going to work on that.

YYYEAHHHHHH

Just started watching Freaks and Geeks for the first time on netflix last night. Both Renegade and Come Sail Away, among other classic rock jams.

xxpost yeah, a lot of people probably think of, say, "Casey Jones" "Life During Wartime" and "Peace Frog" as "That Riding that train/High on Cocaine song" "This Ain't No Party, This Ain't No Disco" and "Blood on the Streets in the Town of Chicago"

or whatever a casual listener thinks "Deacon Blues" is called

Both Renegade and Come Sail Away, among other classic rock jams

"Lady" figures prominently as well.

Oops, based on those descriptions, I know the first two there. D'ohhhhhhhhh. I stand behind not hearing ''Life During Wartime'' on classic rock (IME) though.

A little sad re: drivin' that train - was sort of hoping this would turn out to be a song I very very faintly remember from my childhood where people actually sing (rather dolefully) '''Ca-sey Jooones'' for the refrain. I now suspect this probably came from a cartoon adaptation of the actual Casey Jones tale. Or the Ninja Turtles, I guess. I had originally figured on checking out all of these briefly to make sure I didn't want any for my ballot of 100, but I don't want to spoil them for this thread, now!

I didn't know "Renegade" was Styx till now. Thanks thread.

Pieces of Eight is a pretty solid album!

Nice to see Z93 is remembered! I was practically raised by that station.

Feel like 95% of the reason "Life During Wartime" became a classic rock staple is the "This ain't no disco" line.

Feel like 95% of the reason "Life During Wartime" became a classic rock staple is the "This ain't no disco" line.

otm

So, this is one of those songs where the guitar riff and the vocal line match each other a lot. I'm usually not that into that, but at least here it gives some oomph to the parts where they break apart are pretty sweet

this is completely key to "renegade," for me anyway. not my favorite styx song by a longshot, but i love those parts to death. that, and the undeniable queen stomp-along, which is simultaneously perfect and too easy.

you will need to set aside 7 minutes to begin the next installment of our listening experiment. #2 on ilm's bruce springsteen poll. one of america's most beloved rock and roller's most beloved epics. i know a pretty little place in southern california, down san diego way, that would be a good place to listen to this one.

SONG #3: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN "ROSALITA"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC4bf67s5lQ

YES

fyi getting off lightly with a mere 7 min, live versions go 20+ min

My hometown classic rock station barely played Springsteen for some reason--only Born to Run, as far as I can remember, so I never heard this or any of his other 70s/early 80s stuff until I actively pursued it.

I very very faintly remember from my childhood where people actually sing (rather dolefully) '''Ca-sey Jooones'' for the refrain. I now suspect this probably came from a cartoon adaptation of the actual Casey Jones tale.

This?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbTBk4pDIHA

whoa guys, I just listened to Focus - Hocus Pocus for what is absolutely the first and hopefully the last time. I think you all owe it to yourselves to check it out asap.

it's bitchin

If you don't like 'Hocus Pocus' you are no friend of mine.

Tbh, I only really heard it on the radio when CHEZ was still a 'progressive album-oriented' station. It sounded kind of otherworldly when I was a kid though.

Wasn't familiar with "Hocus Pocus" by title alone, read the description on wikipedia and realized I am deeply familiar with that song.

i had no idea he was saying do it lonnie do it in roadhouse blues until, like, last year. always assumed he was saying robbie.

course i had no idea that lonnie played the solo until recently. that was the problem.

love, the guy who didn't know that brown sugar was about slavery until last year cuz he had never read the lyrics

i also totally missed somehow that rosa was the young bank robber in the flashbacks and i honestly thought that old dying rosa was an old russian woman and thus was completely mystified when old rosa turned into young rosa at the end there. i did wonder why they were driving such old cars in the flashback...

feel really dumb about that. to be fair i am always really stoned when i watch that show at night.

course i had no idea that lonnie played the solo until recently. that was the problem.

wait, and that's john sebastian on harmonica??? i had no idea about that until 22 seconds ago!

xpost deep backstory on that Springsteen song

ha I thought she was Russian too

I'm really surprised Phish has never done a cover of Hocus Pocus.

a group of teachers at my high school did an air guitar performance of Hocus Pocus at an assembly

If you've only heard "Hocus Pocus," and never seen Hocus Pocus, watch the clip below to see the singer wild the fuck out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDW9b_ejfI

Also, I can't figure out the dude's hair. Is he rocking the never-before-seen long hair/mutton chops combo?

Hocus Pocus was used pretty prominently in Nike's 2010 (very excellent) world cup ad

MarkoP - hrm, nope, that's not it - this was something more in a minor key, with grim determination perhaps, but uptempo, train-tempo.

Sorry for the delay, ya'll - got my turntable hooked up again, spent some time yesterday cruising the cheapie bins and have been putting my listening time into Hard Promises - which ain't half bad.

All right now, we're down here at the Lake Lanier Islands Beach & Water Park, it's a beautiful day and we're having a great time courtesy of Holiday Marina and Gwinnett County Honda - we'll be hear all day and into the night so you should come down and join us! Adam Bruneau will be stopping by later to tell you how you can win tickets to see the Sanford-Townsend Band at the Roxy next week, if you call in with a certain plot detail from this song...

Rosalita: Well, from the first bars I'm liking this way more than the Springsteen I've heard - it's overstuffed in the way I associate with his big hits, but it feels joyous, this kind of tringley-dingley "future college rock" stuff is one of my favorite kind of guitar sounds, and even the organ blanket can't smother that. So is this basically the earlier, not-as-exhaustingly-in-your-face version of "Born to Run"?

Love the pretty, fast/high playing around 3:30, another great sound. And the back-and-forth between the players after that is really satisfying, feels 'live' and organic even on this paltry 7-minute studio version. Maybe it's just Bruce's blowsy grunting, wheezing and yawlping that crowds up the mix elsewhere and makes it feel sloppy and Blues Traveler-y. Another great part is the hand-clap and singalong bit around 5:00, for the same reason - things clean out a bit to where you can enjoy hearing each detail even as the pace drives you past so fast you can't catch it all and want to hear the song again. Hahaha, the 6:30 part with the hup-ho-hup-ho, that put a grin on my face. The ending less so - kinda classic "we've got too much going on here for it to really 'end,' so just crash-land with gusto" kinda thing.

Good, uptempo rock band telling-a-tale stuff, this! Didn't catch a whit of the story, I guess people are going places, listening to bands, holding on tight to each other, that kinda thing - presumably if I knew this well, certain moments would be the big epic triumphant deliveries that people love to reach in karaoke. I still think it's a little too busy...I'd love to hear it covered by, like, a three-piece band. I realize this sort of goes against the grain of Springsteenism, and the joy of a bunch of dudes playing off each other that I did appreciate above, but there are ways in which this slips over the line into Phishy jam-band-ism, and that point I want it to get pared back and cleaned up by some slick Phil Ramone type. "If Billy Joel had written and recorded 'Rosalita' instead of Bruce Springsteen..." - though obviously this kind of thing is what Joel's own 'epics' were trying to do. (I love those, but they're a different animal, presumably derailed by his desire to show off his piano playing and melodicism, McCartney-esque 'medley' composition, etc.) The real peer group I guess is the Rolling Thunder Revue, et al - and I'd also be interested in hearing Bob and company cover this, though I suspect they'd lose the pretty bits I liked so much. Thumbs up, will add to my early-70s "Woolly" CR playlist.

another tremendous, insightful review, dc. i've never heard the term "tringley-dingley," but that is my new favorite guitar adjective. it totally makes sense.

this is definitely the early, exuberant springsteen, the last gasp of the much beloved but short-lived band that featured "mad dog" vini lopez on drums and david sancious on piano. not long after, sancious quit and lopez was sacked, and the modern e street band was more or less solidified on the next album, born to run, two years later. and then the workingman's hero version of springsteen was more or less born three years after that, on darkness on the edge of town. in many ways, the entirety of bruce springsteen is contained in those two albums and in the wild, the innocent and the e street shuffle, from which came "rosalita," and those five years are probably what most fans think of as his peak. as springsteen goes, the earlier the sloppier/wilder/funner, which in a way might also translate to phishier/blues travelerier, i can sort of sea that, yeah. but also, definitely, yes, rolling bob dylan.

presumably if I knew this well, certain moments would be the big epic triumphant deliveries that people love to reach in karaoke.

the two big such moments for me have always been"
--the big saxophone entry at 3:42 (which, during karaoke, would translate to air sax, obviously)
--"the record company, rosie, just gave me a big advance!"

my other favorite vocal moment is how "the cats," in the line "trying out his attitude on all the cats," at 1:21, sounds like it was overdubbed by springsteen at a different point in his life.

"If Billy Joel had written and recorded 'Rosalita' instead of Bruce Springsteen..."

my mind blown. (billy actually wrote two songs with "rosalinda" in the title, but no rosalitas.)