C/D Traffic S/D

fuckin rule

listening to my beautiful 1st press 'Last Exit'

Gotta add a big-S Search for "Paper Sun."

The entirety of the LOW SPARK album is untouchably great.

Alex is on - Low Spark is near perfect - "Hidden Treasure" is one of my all-time faves.

Dream Gerrard is XD

Light up or leave me alone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnPQSBB6BoY

i've got the vhs of that concert; it's pretty sweet! chris wood is the shit

i got bombarded by traffic by my dad growing up.. a lot of it glazes over me but i've always love low spark lp and the first two albums + early singles a great deal. i think steve winwood's first solo album might be better than any traffic album (maybe dave mason's alone together as well?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJCCzT7syrc

major dud.

major one of the most classic and faultless bands of all time through first 4 albs (heck, throw 'Last Exit' in too)

heard "the low spark..." on a random radio station testing out a friend's hifi in berlin on nye of all places, had never heard of these guys before but got my friend to shazam it...and it worked. amazing tune! is the album of the same name the place to start?

"low spark" the album isn't a bad place to start, but the album "shoot out at the fantasy factory" has more "low spark"(the song)-ish moments. all of their albums are pretty good-great, imo

Never listened to these guys before, except for hearing "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and an edited version of "Low Spark" on the radio as a kid. Checking out the 2CD Gold compilation on Spotify right now, and it's pretty clear I've been missing out.

Oh yeah, these guys are great.

What's the deal with like 12 different versions of their first album?

Dream Gerrard is XD

― autogucci cru (deej), Tuesday, 26 May 2009 06:51 (4 years ago) Bookmark

^^

I got back into listening to them a couple of months back and bought the Low Spark cd around the same time. Think they're pretty great. There are a few live sets on torrent sites at the moment. Got one from Copenhagen in '68 last week.

THere's a Sunbeam reissue of an lp where they were backing Gordon jackson
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Back-Gordon-Jackson/dp/B000BZDGGY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1381054256&sr=8-2&keywords=gordon+jackson

too though I'm not sure you'd recognise them as Traffic. Haven't listened to the cd in a while but that may be mored own to lack of order in my cd collection than anything else.

Was just looking for them from the Midsummer Rock Cincinatti Pop Festival but can't find them on youtube's search engine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-KbGbGIopM
is them from Glastonbury Fayre in '71

&
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzcojNK9EnI
is them in '68 on Pete & Dud's Goodbye Again

Talk Talk: mid-late 80s :: Traffic: late 60s-early70s. winwood even plays organ on half of "colour of spring"! seriously, though, traffic started out doing timely deep psychedelic pop and moved on to expansive jammy pasutresl; talk talk moved from synth pop to rootsy miles/ECM meditations

From the 'In Praise of... The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys by Traffic' thread:

keyboard-slash-lathe sounding thing

Yeah, I love that. Seems to me there's a bit of that circa Spirit of Eden/Laughing Stock Talk Talk, no?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, November 2, 2003 11:31 PM (12 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Isn't it some kind of plug-in effect/treatment on the Hammond? You can hear a normal organ part at beginning that quickly gives way to the fuzzed out bit we all know and love, as if Winwood realized he forgot something and flipped a switch.

I've been collecting versions of "Feelin' Alright" over the years. Its a great tune and some fine covers.

Any more to my list: Weller, Maceo Parker, Trinidad Oil Company, Fifth Dimension, Rare Earth.

― tigerclawskank, Tuesday, November 5, 2002 12:02 PM (13 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Isn't there a version finishing off Hustler's convention the Lightning Rod lp? I think it may come outof the last listed track but think it's there. Been a while since I listened to it as an lp though.

When the Eagle Flies is such an underrated album. 'Dream Gerrard' is hypnotizing.

Love the mellotron strings on that one

"Walking In The Wind" is so good, too. Sounds like a warm-up for Winwood's s/t + Arc Of The Diver.

I need to revisit Eagle, I haven't listened to it in years

guiding yogis into heaven
and heave is in your mind

*heaven

i'll try moongazer, because with you i'm stronger

Chris Wood box set from last year has a ton of good stuff in it. Smoother, more 70s-sounding than Traffic but lots of dope extended jams.

lean streaky music, spawned on the streets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWn38OtjAKU

does traffic as a band, and furthermore as an idea of music making in general, just not make sense to anyone else? or is it just me?

they had some jams, but i always get the urge to listen to them when i feel like i want to hear music made by people who had no clue why they were doing what they doing. idk, it's a weird concept.

"Walking In The Wind" is so good, too. Sounds like a warm-up for Winwood's s/t + /Arc Of The Diver/.

https://i.imgur.com/p0YE76l.jpg

Does this thread mention the connection between Traffic and Muscle Shoals?

Steve Winwood embarked on a solo career, while Rosko Gee and Rebop Kwaku Baah joined German band Can.

had forgotten this !

santa monica, 1972:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocjSc7v83pk

what is the muscle shoals connection, James ?

I know shoot out was recorded there

Just listening to some Traffic and noticed that, on his psych pop songs, Dave Mason sounds like (60s) Bowie - or vice versa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME3mICfgcQ4

Also, the Bonzos' occasional straight rock songs are very reminisicent of Traffic. I know the bands were chums.

via Anthony Newley

True, I never noticed the Bowiesque inflections in Mason's voice before. Maybe the lyrics are still a little fanciful to fit on his 67 album.

I heard Mason's Alone Together for the first time this year. I find it a more pleasant listen than the somewhat similar 1970 LPs All Things Must Pass or the Layla album (being a short single album instead of a long double or triple helps). I can see why some critics at the time celebrated it - Mason was one of the rock artists learning how to make a listenable running order of suitable diverse songs without tossing in a lame, underrehearsed cover or bizarre psychedelic experiment. Of course, within a few years, this consistency, maturity and tastefulness would congeal into tedium for the entire genre. This is what I take from Christgau calling him the "father of California rock-pop".

It’s a really solid album

it’s like you never left is really good too

Traffic are a good band for throwing up similarities, so "Vagabond Virgin" is like Amon Duul II (specifically the song "Tables Are Turned") fronted by "Laughing Gnome" era Bowie.

Listening to Shoot Out and When the Eagle Files and hearing commonalities to the grooves on Can's Soon Over Babaluma and Landed and Live in Stuttgart 1975 that makes Can taking in the late-Traffic rhythm section make sense.

I've been listening to those two albums too.

"Shoot Out" just isn't very good, The title track is the best thing on it and doesn't sound like anything else they ever did - a wall of fuzz guitars with this relentless groove pummelling away behind it. "Roll Right Stones" lasts about two weeks and I can barely remember the rest of the album. Seems like a waste of the Muscle Shoals guys

"When the Eagle Flies" is much better, even though it has a strange listless quality. "Dream Gerrard" is a teensy bit too long and aimless - a common complaint with Traffic - but it and the following two tracks are still pretty great. Then the album just kind of dies, "Memories of a Rock 'n Rolla" is hopeless and the final two tracks sound unfinished and underdeveloped, "Love" sounds like they're making it up as they go along. Jim Capaldi's drumming on this album is great!

What I love about those records is a strange combination of their aristocratic arrogance (in the running times, relaxed tempi, etc.) and guileless earnestness (in the lyrics and Winwood's emotionally transparent voice). They really believe their audience wants to join them in a 15-minute contemplations of standing stones or French surrealist poetry. I love "Roll Right Stones" so much that I sometimes listen to both versions of it (the 13:40 original mix and the "sprightly" 11:46 later mix) in a row. I admit that I have a greater tolerance for listlessness than the average listener.
"Love" was in fact actually improvised and recorded onstage with vocals overdubbed later.

It's all about the second side of Shootout for me, especially "Tragic Magic" and "Uninspired." Coincidentally, both of those tracks make up one side of "On The Road" and I've played that side a ton.

"Love" was in fact actually improvised and recorded onstage with vocals overdubbed later.

Ah well, that makes sense!

"Roll Right Stones" lasts about two weeks

Starts off like Robert Wyatt too! There's nice parts in this song but I hate the clunky chorus so much, unfortunate as it's repeated about a million times.

I've been collecting versions of "Feelin' Alright" over the years. Its a great tune and some fine covers.
Any more to my list: Weller, Maceo Parker, Trinidad Oil Company, Fifth Dimension, Rare Earth.

I am unironically and perhaps unreasonably attached to the version that Joe Cocker and John Belushi did on SNL.

"Glad" is a Fucking JAM.

100%

...and it blows my mind that so much of it is just Winwood (and Chris Wood to a lesser extent) overdubbing. It really feels a big group of seasoned players just *going off*