I didn't know that Robert Crumb played drums in a proto-punk band in the 70s.
"Where You Been So Long" East River String Band w/ R. Crumb France 2013
"So Sorry Dear" East River String Band w/ R. Crumb France 2013
Posted on 01/01/2014 7:18:16 PM PST by hecht
You know, it's funny because I pretty much dropped out of listening to any radio back when disco was popular except for the lone 'album rock' oriented station in houston at the time (101 KLOL). These days, I have a few of their tunes. (granted not many). They were actually fairly talented musicians, as far as composition and such went when they wanted to be. I didn't really care much for their style, but have learned over the years, that it wasn't all dreck.
You’re lucky. I missed out on seeing Lionel Hampton one time he was in my home town, as I had to be back up at college. Same darned thing happened with Count Basie and his band. Conversely, Benny Goodman made an appearance at my college, but I had to be back in my hometown that weekend, and missed him too! One of my college profs (a generic jazz appreciation course) tried to get Cab Calloway to drop in when he was in the vicinity, but Calloway had some plans to play the ponies, so it didn’t materialize.
I think the only old-timer I ever saw (and later met, after the show) was Harry James.
VNV Nation, Rotorsand, SITD, Assemblage 23, Blutengel...
They may have occasionally lip synched, but there was no auto-tune so they had to have the goods
Disc sucked then and now
Concerts weren’t an hour long back then either (for the pop acts for kids). Even the Beatles in their heyday played shorter shows so they could pack the joint twice.
If you wanted to see a 7 hour Beatles concert, you had to go see them in their Hamburg days. And it probably wasn’t all gold.
I was in Germany in early 1972 and listened to the Armed Forces Network, which played Top 40 tunes. Since, for some reason, "Brand New Key" was close to the top of the charts, it got played a lot. That, and "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing."
I think there was plenty of crappy music that dominated the airwaves (radio and television) as I was growing up in the 70s and 80s and 90s and 21st century onwards.
And that isn't to say that I don't run across plenty of crappy and mediocre music "hits" in the used record bins either.
Winchester Cathedral won a Best Song Grammy.
Nah, the argument won’t work because I grew up on Led Zep and Hendrix (one of America’s great poets, by the way, even if stoned). I think just fine. I think just fine. I think just fine. Wait, did I say that?
I didn't like post-Woodstock country-rock, post-Woodstock Nashvegas rock-country or anything "country industry" ever since, disco, corporate stadium rock, fern bar music, rap, hardcore, thrash, speed metal, house music, hip hop, top 40-girly diva disco (Mariah, Madonna, Paula Abdul, etc), grunge (or at least anything that "got through"), boy bands, Disney dance acts, "the return of rock Strokes-Vines-Hives-White Stripes YEAH!", dubstep, mashups, techno, electronica, ambient, cuddlecore, rrriot girrrl, NU country, NU Metal, Mathrock, Icelandic death metal, U2...
I could go on and on and include those artists like Tony Bennett and Ethyl Merman who "had" to record Beatles covers and disco songs to prove they were still "with it".
It's also the "music" that is offerred up by those who are willing to "play the game" and be packaged, co-opted, and into perpetual debt to their label for hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.
Sign the contract and your music will be pushed on the radio, tv-shows, you'll get to gush about your recollections of the 70s,80s, 90s,00s, etc. on MTV/VH-1 "I remember the" specials, you'll get facetime in documentaries on bands that having nothing to do with you (like those in the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. documentary, WillIAm and Sheryl Crowe I'm calling you out).
You may even get invited to the Obama White Hut.
Can't say I've ever agreed with a single Grammy choice.
And since the "star" celebrity status is manufactured, if you try to walk for independence, you'll get backlashed and find that those who rejected you are unlikely to ever like you and those who liked your "hit" aren't so interested in your new material (including the stations that played you in the first place).
The music business is about song publishing. It was that way in the era of Tin Pan Alley. It was that way in the era of the Brill Building. It is that way in the boy band racket, Nashvegas recording industry, and on and on.
"cover songs" are often pushed on an artist because someone who owns the publishing wants to get money in his pocket from some new verison. That was the case when Bill Haley recorded "Thirteen Women". "OH, and by the way, you can put that other song you do "Rock Around The Clock" (not actually original either) on the flip IF you can finish the recording in 30 minutes!"
Much of the Elvis catalog is singing other peoples' songs (and that doesn't include those who wrote the "hits" and deliberate "misses" that were put on the back sides).
I didn't know that Robert Crumb played drums in a proto-punk band in the 70s.
"Where You Been So Long" East River String Band w/ R. Crumb France 2013
"So Sorry Dear" East River String Band w/ R. Crumb France 2013
Buddy Holly almost never ever got a shot.
Here is his "label" refusing to release "That'll Be The Day", dropping his contract, AND refusing to let him buy out the song as well.
Phone call between Buddy Holly and Paul Cohen of DECCA from Thursday February 28, 1957.
5 years parking and the "trends" would have changed.
He ended up going around the label (and luckily was on a subsidiary label when he did so).
There exists an incestuous monopoly of the media (the oversized corporate interests own the magazines that tell you what the trends are, they own the record labels, sometimes they own the tv/radio stations, and on and on).
The small labels are effectively shut out. It was that way when Elvis was on Sun and Nirvana was on Sub-Pop. Those labels that manage to break through to the mainstream are few and far between but when they are permitted to, the changes can be dramatic.
The Beatles were on several small US labels (Swan and Vee Jay among them) before Capital Records big blitz to bring them over. Leslie Gore and Tommy Roe BOTH saw the Beatles early on in Europe and tried to get the attention of booking agents and labels with no success. “Aw, the guitar group sound is OUT, baby!”
The tower belonging to the whores of Media Babylon has collapsed (people don't listen to radio in the numbers they once did, they find no relevancy in the music, and if they are buying music, it is from untracked artists who never "chart" or even used album sales that are likewise untracked by the industry press).
We are all wandering around speaking in babbling tones unable to communicate with one another these days. Balkanization. No longer any shared experiences in the culture. You're on your own.
That Big Chuck and Little John clip is great. Back in the days when there was local television (everyone today is harping about the end of local newspapers and local radio but local television programming fell off first).
BC&LJ would create such gags to insert in the old movie they hosted every week (often by American International or Arthur Rank but other studios’ films could find their way into the stack as well).
I don’t think Jimmy Castor took himself very seriously (as Madonna and Lady Gaga DO, entering themselves into discussions of world politics and public policy as they do).
He kept artists like Hank Ballard from being on his show (he even created “Chubby Checker” to record a sound-alike cover version to keep Hank from having the hit with The Twist).
I don’t like most electronic music. It is often sequenced “audio drugs”. It is HEAVILY used in television and even radio advertising these days. I’m glad I’ve been tv-free for over 5 years now.
There are people who use actual electronics to make the sounds or even still play the keyboards though.
There is a bit in the Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii film where a younger Roger Waters (working with a sequencer for On The Run on Dark Side of the Moon) says that there is a danger in such technology replacing music knowledge with cobbled elements. Something like “any monkey can do it”.
Many radio stations today are not even interested in playing new songs at all. Even from new releases from artists they aleady play. Or even adding in other “deeper” cuts from albums they play or even adding in other “hits” from the eras they play.
500 songs. Nothing ever changes. EVER.
Houston just lost one of those stations for a rap station.
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