Minstrel in the gallery (Classic Rock Appreciation)

The Washington Times ^ | 10-13-05 | Dan Campbell

[JZelle]

It may be a 50 Cent, hip-hop world at most American high schools today, but Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull still rule at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County. At least they do when the school's wildly popular Classic Rock Appreciation Club convenes its weekly meetings. The club's second year began with a bang and a wheeze yesterday when, speak of the devil, a very special musical guest came calling: Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, 58, the flutist, singer and guitarist who has led the band through 21 studio albums and countless tours over 37 years. Tull is playing at Constitution Hall tonight, and Mr. Anderson accepted an invitation to pay his respects to the club, impressed that another generation of fans is growing up with an appreciation for music recorded long before they were even born. Thomas Jefferson High is often cited as the most academically advanced public high school in the nation, with virtually 100 percent of its students going to college. Mr. Anderson discussed his music and answered questions for students and faculty members who gathered in one of the school's lecture halls a few hours after students completed the PSAT college-entrance exam.

[T.Smith]

I often wonder how much better their music might have become if Syd Barrett hadn't lost his mind.

It would not have been as good, because David Gilmour is the supreme deity of the guitar. Plus, we would not have had The Wall.

[SoothingDave]

Blinded by the Light: one of those songs where the actual words are considered optional or badly mangled by the person singing along.

Yes, and I can not stress this enough, the song is not about a douche.

SD

[God luvs America]

This has been my band for 35-years:

When I graduated from high-school in '80 I mentioned them in my senior write-up.  I still get a kick today, 25 years later, thumbing through high school yearbooks to see how many kids mention Led Zeppelin....

 

[wideawake]

Gilmour's excellent guitar work would probably not have been scanted if Barrett had remained. They brought him into the band before Barrett left.

And while Dark Side of the Moon is just brilliant, much of The Wall is self-indulgence that hasn't aged that well.

[God luvs America]

 

[Roccus]

A few years ago I was at a restaurant that went karioke after dinner. The ladies I was with were bugging me to do it. I said I would if they had the words to "Louie, Louie".

They did.

I welched.

}:^)

[T.Smith]

It's Gilmour's guitar work that makes The Wall so great. His solos on Comfortably Numb and Another Brick in the Wall, PT II are timeless and beautiful. In fact, his solo breaks on Money are also one of the things that make DSotM an awesome album. His solos, and some saxophone, are the ties that bind those songs together.

That man could play a ten minute solo on three notes.

[reagan_fanatic]

LOL - mangled and mis-heard lyrics are what make it so much fun!

Long live Rock n' Roll!

[Xanadu2112]

...Feeling like a dead duck, spitting out pieces of his broken luck...

[radiohead]

I met Ian Anderson in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn, many moons ago.

We were on our way into the concert venue when we learned the show had been cancelled at the last minute. I remembered reading that the Stones would stay at the nearest Holiday Inn. I figured if it was good enough for Mick and the boys, it was good enough for Tull and we hightailed it over there.

We found the band in the parking lot - they were there but the equipment truck had broken down on the road, ergo cancelled concert.

It was great meeting the guys - Ian is short, tho. I used to see Tull every time they came thru Detroit when I lived in Ann Arbor in the early 70s and was a big fan. I have to admit feeling very old when I heard a Tull song on an elevator.

Good on these kids for listening to some 'real music,' as I tell my son. : )

[ASOC]

And still a million seller. I use it as 'background' as I sit and type on the PC. Just sooooo good.

(OK post review with full attribution?)

Amazon.co.uk Review
One of the most famous albums of all time, Dark Side Of The Moon sold 25 million copies in its first 25 years of release. It continues to be a favourite, with 20 per cent of those sales occurring in the period since it first came out on CD, a medium to which it is ideally suited, especially in its current carefully remastered form. Dark Side Of The Moon was the first album that Pink Floyd decided to break in live before attempting to record, with the debut performance of what they then called Eclipse just over a year before the final release date. When they finally retired to Abbey Road with top sound engineer Alan Parsons, state-of-the-art 16-track recording equipment and the new Dolby technology to hand, it was to produce one of the great pieces of studio art. Covering a range of styles, this was the last album (prior to Roger Waters' departure in the early 1980s) to whose writing the other members of Pink Floyd contributed significantly. Nevertheless, it remains a stunningly coherent package, bound together by surreal fragments of speech (mostly gleaned from asking questions of the doorman at the studio) and Waters' bold and bleak lyrics. Often reputed to be about former member Syd Barrett's decline into schizophrenia, in fact Waters has said the lyrics "were a lot about ordinariness" and dealt with people's responses to the increasing insanity of the pressures of everyday life. Some of the extraordinary sound effects used came from the most unlikely sources--the coins at the start of "Money" from Waters tossing handfuls of change into an industrial food-mixer that his wife, a potter, used to mix clay. Whatever the medium, a new standard for attention to detail and production values had been set and the world of studio recording would never be the same again.--James Swift

[SoothingDave]

And while Dark Side of the Moon is just brilliant, much of The Wall is self-indulgence that hasn't aged that well.

We've got many more then 13 channels of #$%^ on the TV now, for example.

SD

[Dazedcat]

Sorry but without these guys, Zeppelin would have never existed, or would any other hard rock band for that matter.

You always have to pay homage to the prototype........


http://i.rollingstone.com/assets/rs/9/2512/images/10977_lg.jpg

[wideawake]

And I haven't seen any 10,000 strong armies of skinheads marching around my neighborhood killing people and destroying property either.

[tumblindice]

The versions I've heard over the years usually disintegrated into incoherent mumbling. Not that there was too much beer involved. (But I don't remember)
A foreign version of a Gary Larson cartoon which had a whale singing "Louie, Louie" to an underwater mike apparently decided: 'screw it' and had the caption, "I'm singing in the rain . . .".

[cardinal4]

A couple of weeks ago, I was back at my brothers place and he had a DVD on live Zep. There were two sets from '75 at Earl's Court, on electric, one acoustic. I had forgotten how much I loved Zeppelin. It was a smokin DVD, it also had stuff '72 and from Knebworth in '79, which, I believe was their last performance with Bonzo..While I loved Zeppelin, this has always been my Band

[Luddite Patent Counsel]

Actually, the incubator for all classic rock would have been the Yardbirds. Can any other band boast the likes of Clapton, Beck, and Page as their guitar players?

[Dazedcat]

You'll get no about The Yardbirds from me, that's for sure. They were truly miles ahead of other bands of that era, especially when Jeff Beck was with them.

Thanks.

[tumblindice]

"Yeah, that's me alright. I'm the `Midnight Man'." Homer J Simpson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gang

[wolfcreek]

Was that from the tour that was postphoned due to the death of R. Plant's son? Maybe the "Stairway to Heaven" tour in the late 70s (In Ft. Worth,TX.)

I got lucky enough to get ticket from a guy who couldn't go to the make-up date. Best show ever!!!!!!!!