Post a controversial music opinion

That fine line between clever and stupid

Bonkin’ on Hobo

Rain Kept a Trollin

Walk This Way... d'oh!

I mean if you think about it the concept of having them as mine workers - who make a living erm… hitting on rocks - on the album cover is a metaphor.

one day in wilkes-barre pennsylvania i borrowed a copy of the Freedom Rock compilation and i heard Joan Baez sing "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" for the first time and it sounded so lovely to me. that might have been the first time i heard the song. it has always made me wonder if i would like more Band songs if i heard covers of them. i ended up loving a lot of songs on that set. "Signs"! "I'd Love To Change The World". Man, I loved that song. "Reach Out Of The Darkness". "Jump Into The Fire" blew my mind. Holy shit. Hardly anyone has done a song that cool. not The Band. hardly anyone! Prince has. Mitch Ryder. a few others. what a song. and what production. Klaus Voormann on bass! that bass should be on the Mount Rushmore of England. whatever that might be.

Siouxsie's version of "This Wheel's on Fire" is definitive.

oh yeah i love that cover!! its so good. yeah maybe if i get a different kind of energy from those songs it makes a difference.

Funny, I was listening to the Easy Rider soundtrack album earlier and there's a cover of "The Weight" done by one of the worst-named bands of all time, Smith, just because ABC-Dunhill couldn't license the original (which can be heard in the actual movie). And you can tell that whatever gangster was running the label just told the Smith people "Sound as much like this as possible. Tape's rolling. Go!"

I learned early because I was reading Steven Tyler's annotations in the liner notes for....something, where he was going album by album, and he got to Night in the Ruts and he said something like "reverse two letters and you'll learn what Aerosmith is really about"

I love Smith! they could make any song sound amazing.

technically, klaus voormann's bass on "Jump Into The Fire" should go on the Mount Rushmore of Germany. or wait was it Herbie Flowers who played that bass? it might have been. then you could put Herbie and Chris Spedding on the Mount Rushmore of England.

a record i love with a helping of herbie flowers on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbIlwg71KgU

Are they the same Smith that Tarantino used on Kill Bill? They make great covers never heard that one tho

They did a sound-a-like cover of "The Weight" for the Easy Rider soundtrack because of some licensing thing! #onethread!

Band slander giving me early-ilm vibes. Good work everyone, now we just need the return of The Lex.

I’m serious, big pink is spooky and ethereal and melodramatic, it’s practically goth (yes upthread to the Siouxsie wheels cover)

Bonkin’ on Hobo

― Nonhuman biologics enthusiast (morrisp), Thursday, August 10, 2023 4:50 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I apologize. Sometimes I just blurt things out. I try to control myself. Certainly no disrespect meant toward Robbie Robertson. I'm sure he was a lovely person. Canadians are very nice! He seemed chill. Its just that when talk of a band is in the air i feel the need to express myself sometimes. they have always been a group that has eluded me. given how much i have had to read about them over the years ( i know i know thats my own damn fault i could be reading a thriller or something). i've tried but i can only try so much. i think when i'm really old its all gonna click in a big way.

wilco too. i'll probably like them when i'm 80.

They clicked for me fairly recently and I’m not old.

OK sorry, I am old.

I've always felt like some shoegazer who likes Numan's The Pleasure Principle could make a real epic cover of "Chest Fever"

technically, klaus voormann's bass on "Jump Into The Fire" should go on the Mount Rushmore of Germany. or wait was it Herbie Flowers who played that bass? it might have been. then you could put Herbie and Chris Spedding on the Mount Rushmore of England.

Herbie Flowers innit.

Ok so… apparently THE BAND are good and I should listen to them? I’ve only heard The Weight and it’s fine I guess but not fine enough to make me interested in hearing more.

It's like my least favourite Band song.

I love the version with the Staples from the Last Waltz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2eTW8qZBtk

I've put on a few songs by The Band and am quite enjoying it. I never checked them out because I just thought of them as Dylan's (excellent) backing group. Didn't think they'd have any songs, but actually they often do and their chops seem to make it up when they don't..

Totally see what Scott was saying though. This can easily slide into things I would hate.

They're always called "roots rock" but that's a long long way from what they actually were.

I’ve been puzzled by their powerful influence on bands to move communally to the country to “get it together” - including Traffic and Fairport Convention.

Cliche TS: Just five guys living in a house vs. just four guys in a room

I mean, like, how about two women and an ocelot in a yurt?

there was also the hippie commune movement developing at the same time, I think again as with the roots music impulses, the Band tapped into something that was in the air (a larger "let's get back to the land" vibe)

I’ve been puzzled by their powerful influence on bands to move communally to the country to “get it together” - including Traffic and Fairport Convention.

― Dr Drudge (Bob Six), Friday, August 11, 2023 8:11 AM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

iirc, Traffic actually Got Their Heads Together In The Country in 1967, during the time Dylan and the Band were making The Basement Tapes, but before those (and the legend) circulated).

But yeah, so many UK bands (and a few US bands) had acid hangovers, listened to Big Pink, and either broke up, formed other bands, or went "back to basics." Of course, the Band themselves didn't take a (self-) conscious approach to isolating themselves -- it was just the easiest way to help Dylan work out new songs. But it caused the breakups of Cream and the Small Faces (and the formations of Blind Faith and Humble Pie, respectively), inspired the Beatles' Get Back thing, got Fairport and Floyd to be more pastoral, pushed the Dead onto a farm, and even Hendrix got into the spirit by covering "Tears of Rage."

i heard Joan Baez sing "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" for the first time and it sounded so lovely to me

Levon Helm was so appalled by her version that he refused to ever sing the song again. And I don't blame him. She didn't even bother to get the words right.

i.e. the mark of a good cover

trying to think who my favourite "heads back together in the country" attempts are and it's hawkwind for doremi fasol latido

not for the results; for the notion that the country would help with their heads

I keep toying with the idea of starting a Let's Get Our Heads Together In The Country poll, but I can never settle on a decent list. Also, some are albums (Humble Pie's Town and Country, Fairport's Holidays and Unhalfbricking), some are isolated songs (Jefferson Airplane's "The Farm," Jack Bruce's "Theme For An Imaginary Western"), and some (the Byrds' (untitled), the Kinks' Muswell Hillbillies) were late to the party, but still part of the phenomenon.

Write in vote for Schwarzwaldfahrt by Han Bennink and Peter Brötzmann

^^^ would vote for that

Harmonia, "Deluxe".

Faust also.

... and Gong.

not sure that gong ever visited a city (or even a small town)

Incredible String Band - twice. A whole lot of bands tried and invariably failed to get it together in the country.

Led Zeppelin, at both Bron-Yr-Aur and Headley Grange.

for band newbies: 'music from big pink' is still remarkable, tapped into an arcane spirit that no other album has managed to channel. the self-titled is excellent roots music, less alien, more traditional country-style, still beautiful. i prefer it, on most days, but it's not as singular an effort as 'big pink.' beyond there, there are some excellent songs, but nothing as astonishing as the first two albums.

this has been my entry into the "post a conventional opinion" thread

The cousin to this would be leaving your home country to work it out elsewhere, possibly for fiscal/tax reasons (Exile On Main St. those ELO albums Lynne wrote & recorded in Germany, Bowie & Iggy in Berlin etc).

Still failing to see how something like "Whispering Pines", for instance, is roots music.