Post a controversial music opinion

But for all the similarities mentioned, they're still more different than similar, at least from a facile listen

By which song I mean “Born on the Bayou.”

Airplane is real feast or famine for me, they have exceptionally high highs and very low lows

And it sounds like “Lady Godiva’s Operation,” not “The Gift.”

wait, jonathan richman - supposedly one of the sweetest people on earth - had a song about vincent van gogh AND don mclean - legendarily one of the meanest people on earth - both had a song about vincent van gogh!?

i did not know that. talk about your life/death yin/yang.

CCR Live at Woodstock verges on proto krautrock at times

i like to kid a bit about CCR/VU but there are lots of connections.

the biggest connection for anyone with ears is that these are the two greatest american rock bands

(great post tho)

would have loved to hear vu do ramble tamble. my favorite ccr song? yes. it really is. mo tucker would have rocked it so hard!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmjNIJ4YIFI

Think maybe they start out from some kind of diametrically opposite-seeming approaches but then eventually circle around to meet up at an antipode located on the great meridian they are both traversing.

Woodstock “Ninety-Nine and a Half” is insanely intense. They’re playing it mostly straight but it still has that motorik swell.

xp The Roadrunner/Maybellene connection is really interesting to me because I already had a similar line of thought going re the Vulgar Boatmen, who of course are very influenced by "Roadrunner." I was listening to "Can't Catch Me" and the lyrics

Sweetest little thing I ever seen
I'm gon' name you Maybellene
Flying on the beam, set on flight control
Radio tuned to rock and roll

made me think of the Vulgar Boatmen song "Wide Awake," where he hears his own song playing on XRT and yells "turn it up!" - at which point it occurred to me that the song he hears on the radio later on, which I've never been able to clearly make out the title of, might actually be Maybellene? And that he's deliberately calling back to Chuck Berry as the originator of rock music that celebrates listening to the radio and hearing itself.

Anyway, digression, but I clearly need to actually read the book.

All criticisms of Jonathan Richman need to be deferred due to the fact that he used the lyrics "I still love my parents // and I still love the old world" as a straight faced couplet in a rock song. One of the funniest thing anyone has ever done with rock music tbh

― H.P, Sunday, February 25, 2024 6:35 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Richman is a litmus test of whether rockists have a sense of humour (no offense haters)

otfm

All these musical similarities are interesting, but CCR weren’t really countercultural or a “drug band,” were they? I guess I’m thinking of it more basic terms. To me, the hippie-ness of JA and the Dead are what make for that Yin/Yang frission with VU.

Listening to Sweeping Up the Spotlight now, wondering if it comes before or after the inflection point on the graph.

After? It was recorded on Thanksgiving weekend 1969 at the Fillmore East while the Stones were over at the Garden playing the shows that ended up on Ya-Ya's and in the first part of Gimme Shelter.

i think CCR were 'countercultural' at the time, like basically every rock band that wasn't the Monkeys

*Monkees

I put on Live at Woodstock, and I could definitely hear Lady Godiva in that first guitar solo in Born on the Bayou… that’s pretty cool!

…But, y’know, it’s fleeting… after that, they sound like a very good rootsy rock band. I just don’t really hear CCR as experimental rock music.

This is one of those discussions that I'll be looking for two years from now and have no idea what thread it was in.

― Lily Dale, Sunday, February 25, 2024 8:32 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Maybe put a link on the Jonathan Richman is he a class act or what? thread

― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs)

done

The Monkees were countercultural at times, btw.

Lou said Arif Mardin signed the Velvets to Atlantic because he envisaged them as a "high energy rock band" like CCR. (In fact it was Buffalo Springfield Arif Mardin mentioned in connection with the Velvets).

The Monkees were countercultural at times, btw.

Solomon Burke's version of "Proud Mary" has a strong Velvets feel.

Velvet Choogleground

I put on Live at Woodstock, and I could definitely hear Lady Godiva in that first guitar solo in Born on the Bayou… that’s pretty cool!

…But, y’know, it’s fleeting… after that, they sound like a very good rootsy rock band. I just don’t really hear CCR as experimental rock music.

― Sony's Sports Walkman Universe (morrisp), Monday, February 26, 2024 12:50 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

They experimented with being the greatest recording band in the world for at least one year.

CCR rules. My dad like CCR and brought me up right. No dissent should be tolerated. Martial choogle law will be enforced by the Natl Guard if necessary.
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, June 2, 2006 10:49 AM (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

CCR rules. My dad liked CCR and brought me up right. No dissent should be tolerated. Martial choogle law will be enforced by the Natl Guard if necessary.
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, June 2, 2006 10:49 AM (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

new drip from the jonathan richman concert pic.twitter.com/E85oXK4nCO

— ASYA (@femmecamp) February 25, 2024

classic

Fwiw, I do appreciate Richman's whole vibe and approach, and agree that he does appear to be a genuinely great person, and I appreciate his rabid support of the VU, but I still do hate 95% of his solo work. And believe me, I've tried. It is just very much not for me.

its not for me. but i ha

its not for me but i have my own things like that. totally get the love.

i used to own a lot of melanie records.

speaking of jonathan richman, i can't listen to john cale records for the life of me. i turn them off so quick. they repel me? i dunno. i've tried. i own a copy of the terry riley record. but that's it.

not exactly a controversial opinion. not saying he wasn't talented obviously. and he was a cool producer to be sure. and jeez, i mean, i owe him so much, so i always feel a little bad that his own music leaves me so cold. but then i think part of his point is to be really chilly and abrasive. but i guess lou's brand of chilly and abrasive is more my cuppa. maybe welsh poetry isn't my bag?

i'm pricing copies of animal justice and caribbean sunset right now so maybe i'll give them the old college try again. and i HAVE tried over many years.

i wish you all could hear the pristine OG copy of the first stooges i was playing for my kids during winter break. i never need a re-done/remastered/etc version of that album including that cale version that came out a while back. the production/sound/engineering of that album - again 1st u.s. pressing - is - and i never say this or hardly ever about rock records - it's perfect. its a perfect thing. the only thing more perfect is the sealed rhino reissue vinyl i have where they blurbed me on the cover sticker. now THAT is perfection. that's when i knew i could quit rockriting. i had achieved rockriter nirvana.

i'm thinking now that i've never heard caribbean sunset? and eno is on it. i'll put it on next.

As the counterculture of the late '60s had hippie youth rebelling all over the place, the Monkees did so in their very own movie. They go after cops, corporations, television, advertising, warmongers, post-industrial America, their haters, their groupies—even Christmas.

IS NOTHING SACRED???!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl5ZK-UlqxA

My CCR knowledge is paltry (I had beat up vinyl copies of 20 greatest hits and green river as a tween) but that Woodstock set has some pretty potent Dark Arts energy

Let’s make an electric storm is the vibe

but then i think part of his point is to be really chilly and abrasive. but i guess lou's brand of chilly and abrasive is more my cuppa. maybe welsh poetry isn't my bag?

"Paris 1919" is certainly not chilly and abrasive.

either is the eno/cale album

i'm pricing copies of animal justice and caribbean sunset right now so maybe i'll give them the old college try again. and i HAVE tried over many years.

TBH these are not the albums I'd go to to re-invigorate an interest in Cale

Hedda Gabler!! B-side of Animal Justice

not a big fan of the other one though

I'm not a massive fan of the John Cale stuff I've heard tbh. I don't hate it or anything just not really into it. I like Fear though.

Tbh I don’t really care that much if people don’t like artists that I like, it’s more about letting the record show etc. I don’t listen to every Jonathan Richman or John Cale album either.

I've never gotten into solo Cale, though I do love Songs for Drella.

I avoided that one for ages and finally listened last year I think. I'll keep two of his, "Style It Takes" and "A Dream."

With both these guys there are the obvious high points and then some scattered moments. Both of them have really interesting personalities, backstories and relationships with music and other musicians, but if it's just not someone else's thing or thang: if it don't fit, don't force it. No compute.

weird, I can't imagine at least not loving Paris 1919. Two of the band on that are from Little Feat, not among the chilliest post punkers

my dad and maria and i went out for lunch around the corner in turners falls and this guy from brooklyn opened up an awesome hepcat bookstore there and i was SO CLOSE to buying that Roadrunner book. funny that he had it after this thread. it was the only 33&1/3 book that he had. and i like josh and think he's a really good writer and maybe i'll go back and get it. i just didn't know when i would read it. i got the ayler holy ghost book and a strange celestial road sun ra book. its where my head is at. that's where i got that steve reich conversations book. such a cool store. my dad scooped me and got a couple of raymond chandler books i've been wanting. i've got dibs when he's done with them.

listening to that john cale record and i'm digging it! the production is fucked! dig the guitarist. don't even know who he is. the production is dirty and raw and loud. only on track two.

i haven't tried listening to paris 1919 in.....several years. i'll try again when i get a copy. i know everyone loves that one. maybe i'm finally old and cranky enough to be a big cale fan! that's why i never say never.

That Albert Ayler book is great. Clears up a lot of mysteries around his life.

This thread has been pretty fascinating for several days now. I don't listen to Jonathan Richman for the same reason I don't listen to Raffi. And John Cale is pretty NFM, too. I don't hate him the way I hate Lou Reed, but...NFM. But if either of them is your thing, good for you.

Note that clemenza already corrected my error and pointed out that the "Roadrunner" book is NOT part of the 33 1/3 series but rather the Singles series.

i'm probably gonna go back for that alan licht common tones book. i am just so in love with interviews. mostly the only music writing i read now. oral histories. interviews. art taylor's notes and tones might be my favorite music book. it is so inspiring to me.

i did not buy the tricia romano village voice book. maybe if it goes to paperback. i love her and everything. and it also does the oral history thing. but only so many new books i can buy at once. they ain't cheap!