While the entire article (really a review of a book) is interesting, if not frightening, this, for me, stood out:
“Fukuyama’s observation that Marxism-Leninism has come to end, “assumes that the essence of Marxism-Leninism lies in specific political arrangements rather than in its overall spiritual pretensions; but what is distinctive about totalitarian regimes is their claim to be the source of morality and arbiter of truth.”
As the present day USA moves ever faster to obliterate free speech and impose thought control, the majority of Americans are oblivious to what is occurring.
History may not repeat, but is sure rhymes.
Readers of Neo’s blog and others like it constitute only a small percentage of those folks who receive and form their opinions solely based upon the “information” they read in social media.
Neo has previously mentioned her love of Knopfler, Dire Straits and, especially, “Sultans of Swing.” I’m trying to discern a pattern here and am noticing a type.
I’ll take; male musicians with British accents born between 1946 and 1949*, Alex!
*This explains the complete excision of Andy Gibb from her diary entries. 🙂
(A three part series on the Monkees’ Davy Jones is likely in the works, although he was born two days too early to make the ’46 cutoff!)
This may be of interest to anyone with an opinion on the Big Meghan and Harry Deal. It argues that their narcissism is all too representative of the times, and significant for what it means for institutions.
So has anyone thought of wearing ‘Biden Let Us In’ T-shirts next to the barbed wire and chain link fencing around D.C.?
Sonny Wayz:
That would be a good idea except for one thing – everyone wearing one would be doxxed and labeled a violent insurrectionist.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Close but no cigar.
After all, I’m inordinately fond of a certain Canadian singer/songwriter/poet born in the much-earlier year of 1934, and in the French part of Canada at that. In addition, what about the Everlys (older and American)? And Roy Orbison (older and American)? The Eagles (the right ages but American)?
Then again, there is a certain pattern there that you have discerned. Male. Tend to be British. And although harmony is usually a major factor, it’s not there for Knopfler and Dire Straits. There’s also – let’s face it – Richard Thompson (born April 1949) and Cat Stevens (born July 1948), solo artists but in the pocket in terms of birthplace and birth time.
And one puzzlement is why I’m not all that much of a Beatles or Stones fan, although I like both. Is it just because they’re too old? Then why do I like the Kinks? Ray Davies is outside that window (older; 1944), although now that I look him up, brother Dave is right in there at 1947.
As for Davy Jones (born 1945), I’ve already written about him here. As you will see, I wasn’t a Monkees fan, but I did like Jones a lot when I saw him as a kid in the musical “Oliver” on Broadway. He absolutely stole the show.
I’m unable to get through a Dire Straits song. No judgment implied or intended.
So, maybe someone could lay it out for me.
Rufus T. Firefly:
As for Andy Gibb, some day he may get a post of his own. Too young for me, of course, but a very charming guy with a lovely voice much like Barry’s except without the slight grit that Barry had in his chest voice. He also looked like Barry, but smaller and lighter and his voice was a bit lighter too. I was pretty much unaware of Andy Gibb in his heyday, but of course now that I’m a Gibb brothers expert I know a lot about him and have seen many clips. His specialty, IMHO, was a vulnerable boyishness, and also the ability to sing duets with women sitting right up close and facing them and seem very sincere and relaxed. Here’s one example of what I mean. Andy wrote songs, too, but he didn’t have the songwriting prowess of his brothers (few people do), and of course he didn’t have the 3-part harmony. He only performed with them once, to my knowledge, in “You Should Be Dancing,” and the music and crowd is so loud you really can’t hear his contribution separately. In an interview, though, Mo (who shared a mic with Andy on that occasion) said that Andy had tears in his eyes he was so happy. The brothers were devastated at his early death.
DNW,
“So, maybe someone could lay it out for me.”
Unlike Neo, I am not degreed in Psychology, but I’ll take a shot: You appear to think the peak of human evolution was Victorian* England and we’ve been devolving since.
*Or maybe the Georgians? 😉
neo @ 1:23pm,
When I wrote “type” I meant in the colloquial, romantic sense of the word. Or am I wrong and you also find Roy Orbison attractive? When you write about Leonard Cohen I sense more than just an admiration for his music, as with the Bee Gees.
I did not know her then, but in her teen years my wife kept a poster of Andy Gibb hidden on the inside of her closet door. I haven’t asked, but despite the age gap I imagine she would have also been fine with Barry.
DNW:
What puts you off Dire Straits?
Otherwise — great finger-pickin’ guitar, arrangements and band plus songs that tell stories from the heart.
It’s still possible not to like DS, but, as with the Bee Gees, it’s hard to deny they are fulfilling the form.
Yesterday on the open thread TJ posted this.
“Who killed George Floyd?” Now, a 24 minute documentary compiled by George Parry — himself a veteran police brutality investigator and prosecutor in Philadelphia — show us what it means, as the trial of Derek Chauvin goes on.
Early on they released the audio from the body cams, and while the video certainly shows the amount of resistance Floyd was offering to his arrest, the video is compressed.
Also the toxicology report show the cocktail of drugs– meth, fentanyl, non-fentanyl drugs in his system (fentanyl was 11 nmg). Average fatal dose of fentanyl is 9.6 nmg– but the actual amounts varies from .75 to over 100.
So my question is given Floyd’s weight and no doubt tolerance to the drug, would he have died from the level in his blood had he not been arrested?
The stress of his arrest is listed as the factor causing his death, since, while the level was high, it’s not certain that it was a fatal amount for George Floyd.
What if Floyd had told the police officers he had taken a large dose of fentanyl? Would they have acted sooner to call for the ambulance? Would it have made a difference in the outcome?
Once Floyd was saying he was having difficulty breathing– which occurred fairly early on, could he have recognized the danger he was in? Everything he said indicates he knew he was in danger of dying.
Will a new standard come out of this requiring officers, once they suspect the suspect of being on drugs, of assuming an overdose– and was this even an overdose?
My kids know I love Dance, Dance Revolution and one of my sons just sent me the first link which I followed to the two others. Here’s what I surmise based on what I saw. First, for anyone who doesn’t know; Dance, Dance Revolution “gamifies” dance. It’s like a video game in that one watches a screen for clues to score points based on circles or Xs that light up on the floor. The floor is wired to the game. The closer you are to hitting the appropriate spot or X at the appropriate time (beat of the music), the higher you score*.
The guy in the videos, “Smidget” is great at the game! He apparently ruled the arcade in ’05 so friends taped him doing his thing which ended up on YouTube. Nine years later he or someone else thought it would be fun to video his adult self doing the same routine. It’s great to watch any of the three videos for the sheer joy and fun of it, but fascinating to see the two “Smidgets” side by side; separated in time by nine years. One wonders what the Smidget on the right would tell the Smidget on the left, if he could. Which one is happier?
Really neat stuff.
*As I wrote before, I love to dance. I’m not a particularly good dance and know very few, formal dances, but I love to move and jump and spin to music. My wife loves to dance too. I am also VERY competitive. About 20 years ago our family was at a theme restaurant for one of our son’s birthdays and after we ate dinner the kids begged my wife and I for some money to go to the video arcade. I gave them each a few bills and my wife and I ordered another drink and enjoyed a few minutes of solitude. Eventually we decided we ought to gather up the kids and walked over to the arcade. They had been spending their money wisely and still had a few more tokens left and begged for more time. Since it was a celebration we acquiesced and that’s when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye; a Dance, Dance, Revolution machine. I’d never seen one before. I asked my wife if she wanted to give it a go and she said, “sure.” Our kids ran out of money about 15 minutes later and discovered their mother and father, side by side, competing against each other. They came over to watch and I kept pumping tokens into the thing until about an hour had transpired and the kids were now begging mom and dad to leave! As we were walking out of the restaurant I proclaimed; “That’s incredible! They figured out a way to combine dancing with competition. I love it!” The next year, on Father’s Day, the kids bought me a home version that worked with our video game console and I’d use it to keep from gaining weight in the Winter.
By the way, there are amazing stories on the Internet of very heavy kids who got into shape, lost weight and gained confidence from Dance, Dance, Revolution. It’s truly an amazing machine!
huxley on March 13, 2021 at 1:55 pm said:
DNW:
What puts you off Dire Straits?
Seeing them on MTV. Effen balding weaklings wearing sweat bands, and dancing around barefoot like clowns.
Not that Knopfler is not a skilled and creative guitar player. I probably did like and respect the originality of the song Sultans of Swing. One, of those refreshing and offbeat breezes that occasionally blew threw the monotonous deserts of pop music. In that regard, and only in that regard, they remind me of Jim Croce, or Harry Chapin, or of that first hit put out, and the one song I could tolerate from, that miscreant that became “Sir Elton”. The first time you heard them, you said to yourself, “Where in the world did that come from?”
Then though, the once novel formula grows stale too. I would say in that regard, i.e., the eternal recurrance of the same, they were like The Eagles, or The Grateful Dead.
Sorry, but you asked.
Rufus T. Firefly on March 13, 2021 at 1:37 pm said:
DNW,
“So, maybe someone could lay it out for me.”
Unlike Neo, I am not degreed in Psychology, but I’ll take a shot: You appear to think the peak of human evolution was Victorian* England and we’ve been devolving since.
*Or maybe the Georgians? ?
LOL No, it took place on a ranch in eastern Wyoming about 1900 or so.
But seriously I was asking to be informed what the message of the song was,because after listening to the first 30 seconds I couldn’t do any more. Again, just personal taste and tolerance. Nothing more.
So, what is the song’s message that intersects with the politics of the last weeks?
I assume that that was the relevance that was intended.
“Sultans of Swing” seems to have become a rite of passage for teenagers with an urge to play guitar, like some of Jimi Hendrix’s stuff (not musically like, obviously). When I first heard it on the radio I thought it was fantastic (still do)–great song, really great performance. Then I bought the album and didn’t think most of the songs were all that good, so I didn’t go out of my way to hear the group after that. No doubt I’ve missed some gems.
Huxley,
I apologize for not reading your remark more closely. I just answered the first question, and glided past an important observation you made.
You nailed one of the things I disliked about them which they actually could help: Unlike my admittedly uncharitable criticism of characteristics which they could only have sought to miniimize rather than accentuate. And which, except for MTV, I may never have even noticed in order to react to.
Your insight was this: “… plus songs that tell stories from the heart.”
Yeah, that is probably what I don’t much care for, either.
But again, just personal taste. Nothing more.
Mac,
I wrote about this before on a Neo post about the song, but that song will always have a special place for me because it got me started on being a musician*. No, not guitar. Not drums…
I had always wanted to play an instrument but kept coming up with excuses (mostly my family’s lack of funds). One day I was eating cereal before school with the radio on (Steve Dahl’s show, which ties back to one of Neo’s Bee Gee’s posts) and “Sultans of Swing” came on, followed by the Doobie Brothers, “Black Water.” I liked both songs quite a bit and was lamenting my lack of resources to play music and then I thought to myself, “Self, stop blaming your parents.” And that day after school I walked to a music store and asked the guy there what I could afford for $20. He sold me a Hohner Marine Band harmonica for $7 and that’s how it all started.
*I always hesitate to use that word, as I don’t think of myself as that talented, but I have earned College credit for performing in bands and later, even today, I have been paid money for playing and singing, so I guess I qualify.
DNW,
Regarding their appearance on MTV. It’s very possible they had little to nothing to do with how they dressed or were filmed. Public performance, including music, is entertainment and if one wants to make it in the business one has to acquiesce to a lot of demands. From what little I know of Knopfler and Dire Straits, I bet they would much prefer to never wear headbands or even be video recorded, but in the ’80s music videos and dressing like Jane Fonda were essential to get and keep recording contracts and to have successful tours.
DNW:
The song “Telegraph Road” is about the disillusionment and despair of working-class Americans who are shut out economically. It is set in Detroit, where Telegraph Road is (I’ve been there, and Knopfler was there briefly before writing the song). You can read the lyrics yourself; they are quite accessible and not at all difficult to understand. The song starts with the pioneers in America carving out settlements in the wilderness, and it goes on in time.
An excerpt:
…And my radio says tonight it’s gonna freeze
People driving home from the factories
There’s six lanes of traffic
Three lanes moving slow.
I used to like to go to work, but they shut it down
I’ve got a right to go to work
But there’s no work here to be found
Yes, and they say we’re gonna have to pay what’s owed
We’re gonna have to reap
From some seed that’s been sowed
And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles
They can always fly away from this rain and this cold
You can hear them singing out their telegraph code
All the way down the telegraph road….
But believe in me, baby, and I’ll take you away
From out of this darkness and into the day
From these rivers of headlights, these rivers of rain
From the anger that lives on the streets with these names
Cause I’ve run every red light on memory lane
I’ve seen desperation explode into flames
And I don’t want to see it again
From all of these signs saying, “sorry, but we’re closed”
All the way
Down the telegraph road.
Plenty more at the link.
Dire Straits is not one of the more emotional bands in the world. They have some emotional songs – “Romeo and Juliet,” and “Brothers in Arms,” for example. But a lot of their songs are not especially emotional at all, and “Sultans of Swing” is a good example. I love Knopfler’s voice (a lot of people don’t), but I’d never call it emotional. It’s his guitar that has the twang of emotion in its tone – he is a tremendously fabulous guitar player any way you slice it.
I’m curious – what sort of music do you like? Not everyone likes music, of course, but most people like at least one kind or another.
DNW:
I wonder what song you saw them do on MTV that engendered such deep antipathy. I’ve never seen Knopfler “dancing around” at all, and I’ve watched many clips of him live. He started going bald at an early age, but surely you don’t hold that again him? (Although from your comment, it would appear that you do). As far as sweat bands go, do you realize they have a function and are not necessarily an affectation, especially if one is bald and tends to sweat? I am not bald, thank goodness, but back when I played tennis I needed one because when I would sweat the sweat would get into my eyes and sting horribly. I would imagine the same is true if a person is under lights and plays the guitar for a while and is the sort of person who sweats.
It occurs to me that the video might have been this one. If so, the band is actually making fun of itself somewhat here; see Knopfler smile as he sings. It’s a very funny song about what rock bands do. It was based on a conversation Knopfler actually heard in an appliance store, when the guys who deliver the appliances were watching a rock group on MTV and dissing the musicians:
This is the expurgated version. See the original here, verse number 4.
DNW:
How many people could listen to a diatribe by an appliance delivery guy and turn it into a million-copy selling song? And yeah, that IS the origination of the song — word for word, according to Knopfler.
Some people seem mystified by it — it’s really an In-Yer-Face to the speaker: “If it’s so damned easy, why didn’t you do it?”
OTOH, there the basis for “Pop Muzik”, which as I understand, was based on a bet: Scott was complaining about how cheap and formulaic pop music usually was, someone argued, and he bet he could produce a song which sold a lot of copies, loser paid for the expense of making it. He clearly didn’t wind up paying.
😀
}}} It was based on a conversation Knopfler actually heard in an appliance store
Neo: It’s actually the guy’s own words, verbatim. He was in the appliance store shopping for appliances to put in the new home they’d just bought, and he overheard the diatribe… and copied it down in the store. That’s why the f-bomb is appropriate, regardless of the offensiveness of the word, because he was quoting this barbarian who thinks all music-making is a scam.
As I said above, Knopfler is defacto saying, “If it’s so easy, why ain’t you rich?”
He’s tried to make it sound as though that’s not the case in interviews, but I don’t see any other rational interpretation of it.
By the way Rufus, you mention someting that is very important in explaining the current scene and depth of trouble in the US, as well as the imperious attitude of the so-called progressives.
It’s not a new issue, but it is a repeating one that underlies the chasm that divides right and libertarian on the one hand from left on the other.
And it answers that question that I have been tiresomely asking: “What the hell are they thinking, and where the hell do they get off presuming to command without radically deep justifications?”
It is found in the phrase you use figuratively, ” … the peak of evolution”
This formula which the left takes literally, melds two important concepts: organic change due to environmental filtering and mutation; and, the metaphysical idea of progress.
Thus, when people refer to liberals as self-anointed elites who are practicing a religion ( a public ritual and verbal professions which bind) they are quite literally correct.
The liberal trusts in a directional, or at least self-validating developmental evolution which generates new and binding moralities as “It”, i.e., the new god-object of worship comanding our recognition, obedience, deference and incessant affirmation, emerges in time and space.
An immanentizing of the ongoing eschaton of a sort, in a putatively purely secular and naturalistic sense, as others here have mentioned before.
Evolution then, for them, is not directionless; but functions as a kind of naturalistic god in a material world. And you, it is assumed, owe it not just a shrugging acknowledgement as a kind of directionless tautology, but unconditional allegiance; and likewise therefore owe to Its finest and most developed products, i.e., political progressives, your deference and obediance.
That …. is how the crazy ladies and gurlie boys of the left arrive at their outlook and attitude without argument.
They are the peak manifestation of the evolution god striving for a self-realization you are bound to serve. Refusal, is oppression. No further argument necessary.
Politics, the elites, universities, covers it all.
But nowadays “Money For Nothing” has been sanitized to not offend the alphabet tribe.
OBloodyHell:
I think they’re making fun of both the appliance store guys and themselves in that song. Of course what they do is really hard, and they have enormous skill – among the best in the world at writing music and playing it. But they also understand what it looks like from the outside. That’s why Knopfler is smiling. I don’t see him as an egotist or mean-spirited at all. From the lyrics of “Telegraph Road,” he seems to have great empathy with people who do blue-collar jobs.
Brian E:
The trouble with overdoses is that the range is wide. As low as 3 and yet some people survive much more than that, although figures are hard to come by. There are individual variations. But in a criminal trial, the standard is supposed to be if there’s reasonable doubt, and the amount of fentanyl in Floyd’s blood should have introduced a huge amount of reasonable doubt that Chauvin killed him (coupled with other things like the fact that his lungs were filled with fluid and that there was no evidence of neck trauma, and that he was complaining of being unable to breathe long before Chauvin did anything to him).
I believe that they called the ambulance very early in the game and had suspected a drug overdose. I don’t know what they told the medical people when they called for the ambulance, but unfortunately the ambulance got delayed (I think there was traffic, and then perhaps a wrong turn).
Forget Freddie Mercury … never cared much for Queen.
I thought you were asking about Dire Straits in general, not the particular song.
I’m somewhat surprised at your blanket dislike of songs as stories told from the heart. That cuts out a lot of songs.
I’m curious how far that goes. Would it include Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”?
This is a song written by Sonny Landreth and performed by Landreth and Mark Knopfler. I couldn’t find a live version, so this is the studio version. The tune is in the Dire Straits style, with Sonny singing lead and his guitar is on the left channel and Mark’s guitar is on the right channel. Mark’s singing the backup vocals. Blue Tarp Blues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nINpVJzFXwM
The lyrics are about G.W. Bush as a modern day Marie Antoinette flying over the hurricane Katrina wreckage in Air Force 1. (sigh)
It’s a nice melding of Knopfler and Landreth. But I find that poor Sonny was cursed with a very fine but ordinary sounding voice. He’s a master of blues and cajun R&B guitar playing but his voice sounds like it belongs in a church choir. It would have been a better song if Mark sang lead.
Here is something of a reverse situation. Leo Kottke is a fine 12 string guitar player and used to sing some songs, but seems to hate the sound of his own voice. He once claimed that his voice sounds like “bull frogs croaking” but I always thought it was wonderfully colorful, even though it is not a great instrument.
I’ve heard him in concert about a half dozen times, and after about the mid 1990’s he quit singing entirely. Below is one of his early minor hits featuring his singing, which in later years he absolutely refused to play in concert. I really like his voice even though it seems like he struggles a bit with the singing effort. Pamela Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXiReAlRcx8
I hadn’t heard that in almost 40 years, and I was surprised to see that he is playing with a slide. I think he rarely used a slide in later years.
This is another version of Pamela Brown and it’s a better display of his guitar playing. He is so young here that his voice almost sounds pretty, which isn’t the way I remembered it and liked it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxzhzRh7hp8
Neo: “I think they’re making fun of both the appliance store guys and themselves in that song.”
Agreed. That’s how I always heard it. And just hearing it on the radio, once I paid enough attention to the words to realize what the vignette being described was, I figured it had to be based on something Knopfler had actually heard. The telltale for me was “We got to move…[various appliances].” “Move” is not the word that would come to mind to people who haven’t worked retail.
The whole thing is just the way a bunch of salesmen standing around in a store would talk. “Look at that–Hawaiian noises–he’s banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee.” It’s really quite a funny song.
Has the chimp been edited out? No doubt the “little f***** with the earrings and the makeup” has been.
If you are feeling a disturbance in the Force… it’s because a BeeGees post has dropped
“Money for Nothing” — brilliant song. That’s Sting singing “I want my MTV…”
Eighties rock/pop now seems like a Golden Age compared to the past 20 years.
huxley:
I think that the 50s through the 80s was a golden age. No more; it ended at some point after that, although I’m not sure exactly when. Perhaps gradually.
“I’m curious – what sort of music do you like? Not everyone likes music, of course, but most people like at least one kind or another.”
Hi. Had to go away and come back. Damn phone book size font tablet is making me dizzy.
My taste in music is about as broad as it is shallow. In retrospect I seem to like the early versions of contemporary or classical , or country music trends, but maybe not the very earliest.
County music selections after the gramaphone era, until the Austin sound ran its course. The same popular symphonic and chamber music everyone else likes Beethoven, Brahms 1’st, Vivaldi … . Classical guitar, but not “studies”. The American Songbook” as performed by Fitzgerald and Sinatra. Django Reinhardt. Grapelli in his second incarnation with Martin Taylor on guitar.
Since we are now into semi sophisticated but patio party background music, throw in a couple records like Diana Krall Live in Paris, or “Standards, by Syeve Tyrell.
Rock , but not Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis, but yes to the early Elvis, and some Sun material. The MTV breakthrough and the select bands of the time or simply hits of the new wave to some extent. The first time I saw Cobain in that black and white tv parody performance I wanted to cheer. There are even three or four good Billy Idol tunes.
Boy Whatever made up like a girl, uh, no, and double no. Did I really want to hurt him? Yeah …
Just like everyone else there were Hootie, and Green Day songs I liked, and when Smash Mouth came along that was a brief relief from the stale.
Disco, no. Carpenters, no. Captain and whats her name … puke. Cher, no. None of that kind of shit. Not any of it.
The 1978 top 100 list the same. The 1969 100 list 50% approval.
Dave Edmunds, Cream, first 3 Led Zepplin albums, early Steve Miller, CCR, The Guess Who, The Byrds, the 4 jerks, i.e., CSNY. Well, Nash was probably not an asshole. The almost entire British invasion offers many selections, so yes. Country rock, provisional yes. Acid rock provisional yes.
Hot Rize with Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers, yes. Haha
Had to throw one in there absolutely no one else would know.
Now that I have demonstrated my lack of serious taste in music, that should abput wrap it up, eh?
huxley,
The Golden Era if you want to call it that ended about 2000. Like with so many things the internet was the best and worst thing to happen to the music industry combined with the advent of ProTools in the late 90s and the music completely lost any kind of heart and soul.
DNW;
Interesting list. Country music is certainly emotional, so I’m not sure how that fits it. And Elvis can be very emotional (I never cared much for him; go figure). Plus, you say you liked almost the whole British invasion, but the Bee Gees in the 60s were very much a part of the British invasion.
One thing I do notice is that you seem to detest a lot of singers and/or groups. You can talk about or list the ones you like, but you wax more eloquent on those you hate. For example, in contrast, I like a lot of groups and I dislike a lot of groups, but the latter bunch don’t arouse strong feelings in me. Offhand, I can hardly think of a group or performer I detest or hate, although there are plenty I have absolutely no desire to ever listen to and some that even grate.
I don’t know if most people are like me in that regard, but at least in my experience the level of hatred or near-hatred you have for certain performers and certain types of music is less common (although certainly not unheard of). There appears to be an element of contempt in it.
neo, Griffin:
I prefer to discriminate, roughly, between rock/pop decades. Ergo, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, which were all golden, though for different reasons. 90s had grunge and Britpop but not enough to ring the golden bell IMO.
Within that framework I say the 80s was a golden age compared to the 2000s on.
However, such taxonomy is arbitrary — not like solid, liquid and gas as physical states.
huxley:
I agree that the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s all were very distinct from each other. But they were all golden, as far as I’m concerned. Then a huge fall-off.
“huxley on March 13, 2021 at 4:29 pm said:
DNW:
I thought you were asking about Dire Straits in general, not the particular song.
I’m somewhat surprised at your blanket dislike of songs as stories told from the heart. That cuts out a lot of songs.
I’m curious how far that goes. Would it include Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”?”
No, Huxley, it would not. In a remark to Neo in a thread you would not have seen, I earlier admitted that some of it could be delivered in a non pathetic, not whiny and contempt inducing way. And that to my own surprise, I found Elvis demonstrated that to my satisfaction with Lawdy Miss Clawdy, Trying to get to You, and One Night.
In fact until the early seventies, male singers seemed to be able to pull the trick off.
I was not sneering at the performers on my mother’s records, as Vic Damone sang Linger Awhile, or Dean Martin sang “My One and Only Love”
Nor did I laugh when about a year ago I came across Jerry Reed’s cover of Wayfaring Stranger. But for this last one, there may be an additional resonance there, despite the fact that his usual delivery and persona/shtick grated the hell out of me.
Funny though. When I saw him live at Gilley’s, there was none of that wild eyed fool stuff. It was a great show.
Ok, guys, going to sign off for now in a moment … Later
huxley,
Well, the 90s had grunge but more widely alternative rock and it also had huge amounts of women (remember Lilith Fair) that were having huge success in multiple genres from AAA to R&B to Country. I think it was pretty distinctive maybe not as much as some earlier decades but that’s just an opinion.
Another thing about the 90s was that was when music radio really fragmented and all kinds of formats came along so the days of hearing the Eagles followed by The Bee Gees followed by Paul McCartney were over and that really started the trend now where virtually everybody is in their little box and likes only the things in their little box.
Silicon Valley Indians keeping it classy, errrr… Caste-y since like, forever:
They don’t seem very keen on Affirmative Action for Lower Caste Indians at all.
Gotta love that Magic Dirt, eh, CivNats? 😀 Inside every immigrant is a little Ben Franklin just dying to burst out.
The funny thing is that the Higher Caste Indians (triply-so the South Indian Brahmins) *are* a genuine cognitive elite who got that way through hundreds of generations of selective breeding enforced by complex marriage rules — *and* with no bottleneck Founder Effects (heh).
Now call me all kinds of bad words, but the West will not end up in a good place after this rapacious nepotistic lot have run rampant through all our institutions for a few generations.
…the days of hearing the Eagles followed by The Bee Gees followed by Paul McCartney were over…
Griffin: I miss those days too. Here’s the top ten from the 1968 Billboard Hits. Rock, pop, soul, R&B, instrumental, and country music, most of which I heard on one radio station.
_________________________________________________
01 – The Beatles – Hey Jude
02 – Paul Mauriat – Love Is Blue
03 – Bobby Goldsboro – Honey
04 – Otis Redding – (Sittin’ On) Dock Of The Bay
05 – The Rascals – People Got To Be Free
06 – Cream – Sunshine Of Your Love
07 – Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass – This Guy’s In Love With You
08 – Hugo Montenegro – The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
09 – Simon & Garfunkel – Mrs. Robinson
10 – Archie Bell & The Drells – Tighten Up
11 – Jeannie C. Riley – Harper Valley P.T.A.
12 – O. C. Smith – Little Green Apples
13 – Tommy James & The Shondells – Mony Mony
14 – The Doors – Hello, I Love You
15 – Gary Puckett & The Union Gap – Young Girl
16 – The Box Tops – Cry Like A Baby
17 – The 5th Dimension – Stoned Soul Picnic
18 – Hugh Masekela – Grazing In The Grass
19 – The Grass Roots – Midnight Confessions
20 – Sly & The Family Stone – Dance To The Music
Youtube threw this song at me as a suggestion. It’s such a lovely ballad and example of Leo’s wonderful “bull frog croaking” low baritone voice.
Corrina, Corrina https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMHAGqXBNFY
It’s also annoying to me because I’ve heard Leo live two or three times prior to 2012, and he refused to sing a single note. Those Dutch know how to pay up or write a contract I guess.
The dynamics of the song are great. A select number of notes have a strong accented attack, but many of the notes, both guitar and singing, are down in the piano or pianissimo range.
I always knew that the song was not written by Leo but I didn’t know it was a Dylan song until I looked it up. The original Dylan and Kottke’s are like two entirely different songs.
Dylan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBORRH2l7-g
I like that link. If Jorn Barger (is he still around?) had taken up musicology, there would be more of this material out there.
Not much up on geese farting on a muggy day — roasting them seems to put a stop to it — but Humid Springtime out here is the season of frogs fornicating in drains. Some of the more intelligent avian predators hang around the exits and feast upon overworked frogs popping up for a restorative smoke.
huxley,
I think I read that from the cover notes on the Chewing Pine album. Could be wrong. Your reference pre-dates mine by several years.
I was wrong. Corrina, Corrina isn’t a Dylan song though the did perform it. It is a “traditional”(?) first recorded by Bo Carter.
Zaphod:
That was a clever link. If only we had more decisive refutations of claims such as “geese farts on a muggy day.”
Haven’t heard of Jorn Barger before. He seems to be my more famous doppelganger. We went to New College around the same time, he stuck it out at Stephen Gaskin’s Farm for six months, while I was content to visit, and we worked on computer games in the 80s.
Maybe I’ll try to look him up sometime. He’s in New Mexico.
I think I read that from the cover notes on the Chewing Pine album.
TommyJay:
As I recall, I read it on the back cover of a late 70s Kottke album. The photo was B&W and showed him close-up in profile drying off his dog at the beach.
Well you all can puzzle out the significance of “Jack Gets Up.” Frogs or geese or what?
I’d like some Santa Claus-modified snow peas, please.
@huxley:
I had the idea you two might have crossed paths. IIRC Barger disappeared down a wormhole during an 80s Lisp Machines Era project attempting to achieve AI Takeoff by Taxonomising Everything and somehow recursed himself into some kind of fugue state which from time to time would output copious chunks of Robot Wisdom.
Came across his Finnegan’s Wake annotations in the mid-late 90s and became a fan for a while and then he disappeared.
Appears to have hopped from Monomania to Monomania… and unfortunately finally landed upon the most unprofitable monomania square of all and did not collect $200. Or just burned out. Dunno.
He’s safe, though, King Jay hasn’t been frisky with the other sex AFAWK.
Rufus T. Firefly on March 13, 2021 at 2:42 pm said:
And that day after school I walked to a music store and asked the guy there what I could afford for $20. He sold me a Hohner Marine Band harmonica for $7 and that’s how it all started.
You play harp? You might be interested in the electric harmonica I’ve developed: http://www.harmonicaster.com
It’s a bit more than $7, but then so is a Marine Band these days.
Johann Amadeus Metesky,
Wow! Are you in either video? The player or “Ray?” Based on the description and videos it appears you guys nailed it, including the name. Perfect!
I know it can be done downstream, with an inline electronic device, but did you put any thought in a switch to change keys on the harmonicaster itself, like the volume and tone control sliders? Sort of like a capo on a guitar?
Rufus T. Firefly, my playing skills aren’t good enough for demos, but then Leo Fender and Laurens Hammond couldn’t play the instruments they invented. The playing on those videos is by Carl Caballero, who fronts a band called the Boa Constrictors here in Detroit. I recorded him on a looper so I have a consistent standard for making videos with various pedals.
You change keys by swapping out the harmonica, which takes seconds. I’ve looked into pitch shifting, to see if one could transpose to a different key without having to switch harps. It’s theoretically possible with a pedal like a Boss Harmonist or EHX Pitchfork which would shift the amplified tone, but it might be confusing to the player’s ear because the harmonica in the Harmonicaster is still sounding in it’s natural key while the amplified tone is pitch shifted.
“you guys” is me, with some feedback from players, help from some folks doing digital design and Jeff Lace, at Lace Music, who has worked with me on developing the pickups. The latest revision uses a purpose-designed version of the Lace Alumitone pickup that is just 1/16″ thick and weigh less than a half ounce. Jeff and I think it’s the thinnest, lightest guitar-type pickup in existence.
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Good one …
Here’s another good one.
Soundtrack for Big Little Lies
https://youtu.be/_p7mwsrsEQM
I urge all to read this:
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/fear-loathing-and-surrealism-in-russia/
While the entire article (really a review of a book) is interesting, if not frightening, this, for me, stood out:
“Fukuyama’s observation that Marxism-Leninism has come to end, “assumes that the essence of Marxism-Leninism lies in specific political arrangements rather than in its overall spiritual pretensions; but what is distinctive about totalitarian regimes is their claim to be the source of morality and arbiter of truth.”
As the present day USA moves ever faster to obliterate free speech and impose thought control, the majority of Americans are oblivious to what is occurring.
History may not repeat, but is sure rhymes.
Readers of Neo’s blog and others like it constitute only a small percentage of those folks who receive and form their opinions solely based upon the “information” they read in social media.
Neo has previously mentioned her love of Knopfler, Dire Straits and, especially, “Sultans of Swing.” I’m trying to discern a pattern here and am noticing a type.
I’ll take; male musicians with British accents born between 1946 and 1949*, Alex!
*This explains the complete excision of Andy Gibb from her diary entries. 🙂
(A three part series on the Monkees’ Davy Jones is likely in the works, although he was born two days too early to make the ’46 cutoff!)
This may be of interest to anyone with an opinion on the Big Meghan and Harry Deal. It argues that their narcissism is all too representative of the times, and significant for what it means for institutions.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/why-harry-and-meghan-matter/
Yes Rufus …
Just when we get locked in on the high fastball … here comes the curve!
The almighty Anthony Fauci gave an interesting interview. It’s worth listening to the whole 4 minutes. I think there is some truth telling as well as some dissembling, but you can decide for yourself.
So has anyone thought of wearing ‘Biden Let Us In’ T-shirts next to the barbed wire and chain link fencing around D.C.?
Sonny Wayz:
That would be a good idea except for one thing – everyone wearing one would be doxxed and labeled a violent insurrectionist.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Close but no cigar.
After all, I’m inordinately fond of a certain Canadian singer/songwriter/poet born in the much-earlier year of 1934, and in the French part of Canada at that. In addition, what about the Everlys (older and American)? And Roy Orbison (older and American)? The Eagles (the right ages but American)?
Then again, there is a certain pattern there that you have discerned. Male. Tend to be British. And although harmony is usually a major factor, it’s not there for Knopfler and Dire Straits. There’s also – let’s face it – Richard Thompson (born April 1949) and Cat Stevens (born July 1948), solo artists but in the pocket in terms of birthplace and birth time.
And one puzzlement is why I’m not all that much of a Beatles or Stones fan, although I like both. Is it just because they’re too old? Then why do I like the Kinks? Ray Davies is outside that window (older; 1944), although now that I look him up, brother Dave is right in there at 1947.
As for Davy Jones (born 1945), I’ve already written about him here. As you will see, I wasn’t a Monkees fan, but I did like Jones a lot when I saw him as a kid in the musical “Oliver” on Broadway. He absolutely stole the show.
I’m unable to get through a Dire Straits song. No judgment implied or intended.
So, maybe someone could lay it out for me.
Rufus T. Firefly:
As for Andy Gibb, some day he may get a post of his own. Too young for me, of course, but a very charming guy with a lovely voice much like Barry’s except without the slight grit that Barry had in his chest voice. He also looked like Barry, but smaller and lighter and his voice was a bit lighter too. I was pretty much unaware of Andy Gibb in his heyday, but of course now that I’m a Gibb brothers expert I know a lot about him and have seen many clips. His specialty, IMHO, was a vulnerable boyishness, and also the ability to sing duets with women sitting right up close and facing them and seem very sincere and relaxed. Here’s one example of what I mean. Andy wrote songs, too, but he didn’t have the songwriting prowess of his brothers (few people do), and of course he didn’t have the 3-part harmony. He only performed with them once, to my knowledge, in “You Should Be Dancing,” and the music and crowd is so loud you really can’t hear his contribution separately. In an interview, though, Mo (who shared a mic with Andy on that occasion) said that Andy had tears in his eyes he was so happy. The brothers were devastated at his early death.
DNW,
“So, maybe someone could lay it out for me.”
Unlike Neo, I am not degreed in Psychology, but I’ll take a shot: You appear to think the peak of human evolution was Victorian* England and we’ve been devolving since.
*Or maybe the Georgians? 😉
neo @ 1:23pm,
When I wrote “type” I meant in the colloquial, romantic sense of the word. Or am I wrong and you also find Roy Orbison attractive? When you write about Leonard Cohen I sense more than just an admiration for his music, as with the Bee Gees.
I did not know her then, but in her teen years my wife kept a poster of Andy Gibb hidden on the inside of her closet door. I haven’t asked, but despite the age gap I imagine she would have also been fine with Barry.
DNW:
What puts you off Dire Straits?
Otherwise — great finger-pickin’ guitar, arrangements and band plus songs that tell stories from the heart.
It’s still possible not to like DS, but, as with the Bee Gees, it’s hard to deny they are fulfilling the form.
Yesterday on the open thread TJ posted this.
“Who killed George Floyd?” Now, a 24 minute documentary compiled by George Parry — himself a veteran police brutality investigator and prosecutor in Philadelphia — show us what it means, as the trial of Derek Chauvin goes on.
https://centaurfilmworks.com/
Early on they released the audio from the body cams, and while the video certainly shows the amount of resistance Floyd was offering to his arrest, the video is compressed.
Also the toxicology report show the cocktail of drugs– meth, fentanyl, non-fentanyl drugs in his system (fentanyl was 11 nmg). Average fatal dose of fentanyl is 9.6 nmg– but the actual amounts varies from .75 to over 100.
So my question is given Floyd’s weight and no doubt tolerance to the drug, would he have died from the level in his blood had he not been arrested?
The stress of his arrest is listed as the factor causing his death, since, while the level was high, it’s not certain that it was a fatal amount for George Floyd.
What if Floyd had told the police officers he had taken a large dose of fentanyl? Would they have acted sooner to call for the ambulance? Would it have made a difference in the outcome?
Once Floyd was saying he was having difficulty breathing– which occurred fairly early on, could he have recognized the danger he was in? Everything he said indicates he knew he was in danger of dying.
Will a new standard come out of this requiring officers, once they suspect the suspect of being on drugs, of assuming an overdose– and was this even an overdose?
If anyone wants a smile today…
2005: https://youtu.be/crEz8i6oVpI
2014: https://youtu.be/O1KUomqrfek
Side by side: https://youtu.be/wtYdB-jXSRE
My kids know I love Dance, Dance Revolution and one of my sons just sent me the first link which I followed to the two others. Here’s what I surmise based on what I saw. First, for anyone who doesn’t know; Dance, Dance Revolution “gamifies” dance. It’s like a video game in that one watches a screen for clues to score points based on circles or Xs that light up on the floor. The floor is wired to the game. The closer you are to hitting the appropriate spot or X at the appropriate time (beat of the music), the higher you score*.
The guy in the videos, “Smidget” is great at the game! He apparently ruled the arcade in ’05 so friends taped him doing his thing which ended up on YouTube. Nine years later he or someone else thought it would be fun to video his adult self doing the same routine. It’s great to watch any of the three videos for the sheer joy and fun of it, but fascinating to see the two “Smidgets” side by side; separated in time by nine years. One wonders what the Smidget on the right would tell the Smidget on the left, if he could. Which one is happier?
Really neat stuff.
*As I wrote before, I love to dance. I’m not a particularly good dance and know very few, formal dances, but I love to move and jump and spin to music. My wife loves to dance too. I am also VERY competitive. About 20 years ago our family was at a theme restaurant for one of our son’s birthdays and after we ate dinner the kids begged my wife and I for some money to go to the video arcade. I gave them each a few bills and my wife and I ordered another drink and enjoyed a few minutes of solitude. Eventually we decided we ought to gather up the kids and walked over to the arcade. They had been spending their money wisely and still had a few more tokens left and begged for more time. Since it was a celebration we acquiesced and that’s when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye; a Dance, Dance, Revolution machine. I’d never seen one before. I asked my wife if she wanted to give it a go and she said, “sure.” Our kids ran out of money about 15 minutes later and discovered their mother and father, side by side, competing against each other. They came over to watch and I kept pumping tokens into the thing until about an hour had transpired and the kids were now begging mom and dad to leave! As we were walking out of the restaurant I proclaimed; “That’s incredible! They figured out a way to combine dancing with competition. I love it!” The next year, on Father’s Day, the kids bought me a home version that worked with our video game console and I’d use it to keep from gaining weight in the Winter.
By the way, there are amazing stories on the Internet of very heavy kids who got into shape, lost weight and gained confidence from Dance, Dance, Revolution. It’s truly an amazing machine!
Seeing them on MTV. Effen balding weaklings wearing sweat bands, and dancing around barefoot like clowns.
Not that Knopfler is not a skilled and creative guitar player. I probably did like and respect the originality of the song Sultans of Swing. One, of those refreshing and offbeat breezes that occasionally blew threw the monotonous deserts of pop music. In that regard, and only in that regard, they remind me of Jim Croce, or Harry Chapin, or of that first hit put out, and the one song I could tolerate from, that miscreant that became “Sir Elton”. The first time you heard them, you said to yourself, “Where in the world did that come from?”
Then though, the once novel formula grows stale too. I would say in that regard, i.e., the eternal recurrance of the same, they were like The Eagles, or The Grateful Dead.
Sorry, but you asked.
LOL No, it took place on a ranch in eastern Wyoming about 1900 or so.
But seriously I was asking to be informed what the message of the song was,because after listening to the first 30 seconds I couldn’t do any more. Again, just personal taste and tolerance. Nothing more.
So, what is the song’s message that intersects with the politics of the last weeks?
I assume that that was the relevance that was intended.
“Sultans of Swing” seems to have become a rite of passage for teenagers with an urge to play guitar, like some of Jimi Hendrix’s stuff (not musically like, obviously). When I first heard it on the radio I thought it was fantastic (still do)–great song, really great performance. Then I bought the album and didn’t think most of the songs were all that good, so I didn’t go out of my way to hear the group after that. No doubt I’ve missed some gems.
Huxley,
I apologize for not reading your remark more closely. I just answered the first question, and glided past an important observation you made.
You nailed one of the things I disliked about them which they actually could help: Unlike my admittedly uncharitable criticism of characteristics which they could only have sought to miniimize rather than accentuate. And which, except for MTV, I may never have even noticed in order to react to.
Your insight was this: “… plus songs that tell stories from the heart.”
Yeah, that is probably what I don’t much care for, either.
But again, just personal taste. Nothing more.
Mac,
I wrote about this before on a Neo post about the song, but that song will always have a special place for me because it got me started on being a musician*. No, not guitar. Not drums…
I had always wanted to play an instrument but kept coming up with excuses (mostly my family’s lack of funds). One day I was eating cereal before school with the radio on (Steve Dahl’s show, which ties back to one of Neo’s Bee Gee’s posts) and “Sultans of Swing” came on, followed by the Doobie Brothers, “Black Water.” I liked both songs quite a bit and was lamenting my lack of resources to play music and then I thought to myself, “Self, stop blaming your parents.” And that day after school I walked to a music store and asked the guy there what I could afford for $20. He sold me a Hohner Marine Band harmonica for $7 and that’s how it all started.
*I always hesitate to use that word, as I don’t think of myself as that talented, but I have earned College credit for performing in bands and later, even today, I have been paid money for playing and singing, so I guess I qualify.
DNW,
Regarding their appearance on MTV. It’s very possible they had little to nothing to do with how they dressed or were filmed. Public performance, including music, is entertainment and if one wants to make it in the business one has to acquiesce to a lot of demands. From what little I know of Knopfler and Dire Straits, I bet they would much prefer to never wear headbands or even be video recorded, but in the ’80s music videos and dressing like Jane Fonda were essential to get and keep recording contracts and to have successful tours.
DNW:
The song “Telegraph Road” is about the disillusionment and despair of working-class Americans who are shut out economically. It is set in Detroit, where Telegraph Road is (I’ve been there, and Knopfler was there briefly before writing the song). You can read the lyrics yourself; they are quite accessible and not at all difficult to understand. The song starts with the pioneers in America carving out settlements in the wilderness, and it goes on in time.
An excerpt:
Plenty more at the link.
Dire Straits is not one of the more emotional bands in the world. They have some emotional songs – “Romeo and Juliet,” and “Brothers in Arms,” for example. But a lot of their songs are not especially emotional at all, and “Sultans of Swing” is a good example. I love Knopfler’s voice (a lot of people don’t), but I’d never call it emotional. It’s his guitar that has the twang of emotion in its tone – he is a tremendously fabulous guitar player any way you slice it.
I’m curious – what sort of music do you like? Not everyone likes music, of course, but most people like at least one kind or another.
DNW:
I wonder what song you saw them do on MTV that engendered such deep antipathy. I’ve never seen Knopfler “dancing around” at all, and I’ve watched many clips of him live. He started going bald at an early age, but surely you don’t hold that again him? (Although from your comment, it would appear that you do). As far as sweat bands go, do you realize they have a function and are not necessarily an affectation, especially if one is bald and tends to sweat? I am not bald, thank goodness, but back when I played tennis I needed one because when I would sweat the sweat would get into my eyes and sting horribly. I would imagine the same is true if a person is under lights and plays the guitar for a while and is the sort of person who sweats.
It occurs to me that the video might have been this one. If so, the band is actually making fun of itself somewhat here; see Knopfler smile as he sings. It’s a very funny song about what rock bands do. It was based on a conversation Knopfler actually heard in an appliance store, when the guys who deliver the appliances were watching a rock group on MTV and dissing the musicians:
This is the expurgated version. See the original here, verse number 4.
DNW:
How many people could listen to a diatribe by an appliance delivery guy and turn it into a million-copy selling song? And yeah, that IS the origination of the song — word for word, according to Knopfler.
Some people seem mystified by it — it’s really an In-Yer-Face to the speaker: “If it’s so damned easy, why didn’t you do it?”
OTOH, there the basis for “Pop Muzik”, which as I understand, was based on a bet: Scott was complaining about how cheap and formulaic pop music usually was, someone argued, and he bet he could produce a song which sold a lot of copies, loser paid for the expense of making it. He clearly didn’t wind up paying.
😀
}}} It was based on a conversation Knopfler actually heard in an appliance store
Neo: It’s actually the guy’s own words, verbatim. He was in the appliance store shopping for appliances to put in the new home they’d just bought, and he overheard the diatribe… and copied it down in the store. That’s why the f-bomb is appropriate, regardless of the offensiveness of the word, because he was quoting this barbarian who thinks all music-making is a scam.
As I said above, Knopfler is defacto saying, “If it’s so easy, why ain’t you rich?”
He’s tried to make it sound as though that’s not the case in interviews, but I don’t see any other rational interpretation of it.
By the way Rufus, you mention someting that is very important in explaining the current scene and depth of trouble in the US, as well as the imperious attitude of the so-called progressives.
It’s not a new issue, but it is a repeating one that underlies the chasm that divides right and libertarian on the one hand from left on the other.
And it answers that question that I have been tiresomely asking: “What the hell are they thinking, and where the hell do they get off presuming to command without radically deep justifications?”
It is found in the phrase you use figuratively, ” … the peak of evolution”
This formula which the left takes literally, melds two important concepts: organic change due to environmental filtering and mutation; and, the metaphysical idea of progress.
Thus, when people refer to liberals as self-anointed elites who are practicing a religion ( a public ritual and verbal professions which bind) they are quite literally correct.
The liberal trusts in a directional, or at least self-validating developmental evolution which generates new and binding moralities as “It”, i.e., the new god-object of worship comanding our recognition, obedience, deference and incessant affirmation, emerges in time and space.
An immanentizing of the ongoing eschaton of a sort, in a putatively purely secular and naturalistic sense, as others here have mentioned before.
Evolution then, for them, is not directionless; but functions as a kind of naturalistic god in a material world. And you, it is assumed, owe it not just a shrugging acknowledgement as a kind of directionless tautology, but unconditional allegiance; and likewise therefore owe to Its finest and most developed products, i.e., political progressives, your deference and obediance.
That …. is how the crazy ladies and gurlie boys of the left arrive at their outlook and attitude without argument.
They are the peak manifestation of the evolution god striving for a self-realization you are bound to serve. Refusal, is oppression. No further argument necessary.
Well, finally, it all comes together.
Thanks …
Here is the music that DNW doesn’t like:
https://youtu.be/29E6GbYdB1c
Politics, the elites, universities, covers it all.
But nowadays “Money For Nothing” has been sanitized to not offend the alphabet tribe.
OBloodyHell:
I think they’re making fun of both the appliance store guys and themselves in that song. Of course what they do is really hard, and they have enormous skill – among the best in the world at writing music and playing it. But they also understand what it looks like from the outside. That’s why Knopfler is smiling. I don’t see him as an egotist or mean-spirited at all. From the lyrics of “Telegraph Road,” he seems to have great empathy with people who do blue-collar jobs.
Brian E:
The trouble with overdoses is that the range is wide. As low as 3 and yet some people survive much more than that, although figures are hard to come by. There are individual variations. But in a criminal trial, the standard is supposed to be if there’s reasonable doubt, and the amount of fentanyl in Floyd’s blood should have introduced a huge amount of reasonable doubt that Chauvin killed him (coupled with other things like the fact that his lungs were filled with fluid and that there was no evidence of neck trauma, and that he was complaining of being unable to breathe long before Chauvin did anything to him).
I believe that they called the ambulance very early in the game and had suspected a drug overdose. I don’t know what they told the medical people when they called for the ambulance, but unfortunately the ambulance got delayed (I think there was traffic, and then perhaps a wrong turn).
Forget Freddie Mercury … never cared much for Queen.
https://youtu.be/qF0JV28vgLw
DNW:
I thought you were asking about Dire Straits in general, not the particular song.
I’m somewhat surprised at your blanket dislike of songs as stories told from the heart. That cuts out a lot of songs.
I’m curious how far that goes. Would it include Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”?
This is a song written by Sonny Landreth and performed by Landreth and Mark Knopfler. I couldn’t find a live version, so this is the studio version. The tune is in the Dire Straits style, with Sonny singing lead and his guitar is on the left channel and Mark’s guitar is on the right channel. Mark’s singing the backup vocals.
Blue Tarp Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nINpVJzFXwM
The lyrics are about G.W. Bush as a modern day Marie Antoinette flying over the hurricane Katrina wreckage in Air Force 1. (sigh)
It’s a nice melding of Knopfler and Landreth. But I find that poor Sonny was cursed with a very fine but ordinary sounding voice. He’s a master of blues and cajun R&B guitar playing but his voice sounds like it belongs in a church choir. It would have been a better song if Mark sang lead.
Here is something of a reverse situation. Leo Kottke is a fine 12 string guitar player and used to sing some songs, but seems to hate the sound of his own voice. He once claimed that his voice sounds like “bull frogs croaking” but I always thought it was wonderfully colorful, even though it is not a great instrument.
I’ve heard him in concert about a half dozen times, and after about the mid 1990’s he quit singing entirely. Below is one of his early minor hits featuring his singing, which in later years he absolutely refused to play in concert. I really like his voice even though it seems like he struggles a bit with the singing effort.
Pamela Brown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXiReAlRcx8
I hadn’t heard that in almost 40 years, and I was surprised to see that he is playing with a slide. I think he rarely used a slide in later years.
This is another version of Pamela Brown and it’s a better display of his guitar playing. He is so young here that his voice almost sounds pretty, which isn’t the way I remembered it and liked it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxzhzRh7hp8
Neo: “I think they’re making fun of both the appliance store guys and themselves in that song.”
Agreed. That’s how I always heard it. And just hearing it on the radio, once I paid enough attention to the words to realize what the vignette being described was, I figured it had to be based on something Knopfler had actually heard. The telltale for me was “We got to move…[various appliances].” “Move” is not the word that would come to mind to people who haven’t worked retail.
The whole thing is just the way a bunch of salesmen standing around in a store would talk. “Look at that–Hawaiian noises–he’s banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee.” It’s really quite a funny song.
Has the chimp been edited out? No doubt the “little f***** with the earrings and the makeup” has been.
If you are feeling a disturbance in the Force… it’s because a BeeGees post has dropped
“Money for Nothing” — brilliant song. That’s Sting singing “I want my MTV…”
Eighties rock/pop now seems like a Golden Age compared to the past 20 years.
huxley:
I think that the 50s through the 80s was a golden age. No more; it ended at some point after that, although I’m not sure exactly when. Perhaps gradually.
Hi. Had to go away and come back. Damn phone book size font tablet is making me dizzy.
My taste in music is about as broad as it is shallow. In retrospect I seem to like the early versions of contemporary or classical , or country music trends, but maybe not the very earliest.
County music selections after the gramaphone era, until the Austin sound ran its course. The same popular symphonic and chamber music everyone else likes Beethoven, Brahms 1’st, Vivaldi … . Classical guitar, but not “studies”. The American Songbook” as performed by Fitzgerald and Sinatra. Django Reinhardt. Grapelli in his second incarnation with Martin Taylor on guitar.
Since we are now into semi sophisticated but patio party background music, throw in a couple records like Diana Krall Live in Paris, or “Standards, by Syeve Tyrell.
Rock , but not Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis, but yes to the early Elvis, and some Sun material. The MTV breakthrough and the select bands of the time or simply hits of the new wave to some extent. The first time I saw Cobain in that black and white tv parody performance I wanted to cheer. There are even three or four good Billy Idol tunes.
Boy Whatever made up like a girl, uh, no, and double no. Did I really want to hurt him? Yeah …
Just like everyone else there were Hootie, and Green Day songs I liked, and when Smash Mouth came along that was a brief relief from the stale.
Disco, no. Carpenters, no. Captain and whats her name … puke. Cher, no. None of that kind of shit. Not any of it.
The 1978 top 100 list the same. The 1969 100 list 50% approval.
Dave Edmunds, Cream, first 3 Led Zepplin albums, early Steve Miller, CCR, The Guess Who, The Byrds, the 4 jerks, i.e., CSNY. Well, Nash was probably not an asshole. The almost entire British invasion offers many selections, so yes. Country rock, provisional yes. Acid rock provisional yes.
Hot Rize with Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers, yes. Haha
Had to throw one in there absolutely no one else would know.
Now that I have demonstrated my lack of serious taste in music, that should abput wrap it up, eh?
huxley,
The Golden Era if you want to call it that ended about 2000. Like with so many things the internet was the best and worst thing to happen to the music industry combined with the advent of ProTools in the late 90s and the music completely lost any kind of heart and soul.
DNW;
Interesting list. Country music is certainly emotional, so I’m not sure how that fits it. And Elvis can be very emotional (I never cared much for him; go figure). Plus, you say you liked almost the whole British invasion, but the Bee Gees in the 60s were very much a part of the British invasion.
One thing I do notice is that you seem to detest a lot of singers and/or groups. You can talk about or list the ones you like, but you wax more eloquent on those you hate. For example, in contrast, I like a lot of groups and I dislike a lot of groups, but the latter bunch don’t arouse strong feelings in me. Offhand, I can hardly think of a group or performer I detest or hate, although there are plenty I have absolutely no desire to ever listen to and some that even grate.
I don’t know if most people are like me in that regard, but at least in my experience the level of hatred or near-hatred you have for certain performers and certain types of music is less common (although certainly not unheard of). There appears to be an element of contempt in it.
neo, Griffin:
I prefer to discriminate, roughly, between rock/pop decades. Ergo, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, which were all golden, though for different reasons. 90s had grunge and Britpop but not enough to ring the golden bell IMO.
Within that framework I say the 80s was a golden age compared to the 2000s on.
However, such taxonomy is arbitrary — not like solid, liquid and gas as physical states.
huxley:
I agree that the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s all were very distinct from each other. But they were all golden, as far as I’m concerned. Then a huge fall-off.
No, Huxley, it would not. In a remark to Neo in a thread you would not have seen, I earlier admitted that some of it could be delivered in a non pathetic, not whiny and contempt inducing way. And that to my own surprise, I found Elvis demonstrated that to my satisfaction with Lawdy Miss Clawdy, Trying to get to You, and One Night.
In fact until the early seventies, male singers seemed to be able to pull the trick off.
I was not sneering at the performers on my mother’s records, as Vic Damone sang Linger Awhile, or Dean Martin sang “My One and Only Love”
Nor did I laugh when about a year ago I came across Jerry Reed’s cover of Wayfaring Stranger. But for this last one, there may be an additional resonance there, despite the fact that his usual delivery and persona/shtick grated the hell out of me.
Funny though. When I saw him live at Gilley’s, there was none of that wild eyed fool stuff. It was a great show.
Ok, guys, going to sign off for now in a moment … Later
huxley,
Well, the 90s had grunge but more widely alternative rock and it also had huge amounts of women (remember Lilith Fair) that were having huge success in multiple genres from AAA to R&B to Country. I think it was pretty distinctive maybe not as much as some earlier decades but that’s just an opinion.
Another thing about the 90s was that was when music radio really fragmented and all kinds of formats came along so the days of hearing the Eagles followed by The Bee Gees followed by Paul McCartney were over and that really started the trend now where virtually everybody is in their little box and likes only the things in their little box.
Silicon Valley Indians keeping it classy, errrr… Caste-y since like, forever:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-03-11/how-big-tech-is-importing-india-s-caste-legacy-to-silicon-valley
They don’t seem very keen on Affirmative Action for Lower Caste Indians at all.
Gotta love that Magic Dirt, eh, CivNats? 😀 Inside every immigrant is a little Ben Franklin just dying to burst out.
The funny thing is that the Higher Caste Indians (triply-so the South Indian Brahmins) *are* a genuine cognitive elite who got that way through hundreds of generations of selective breeding enforced by complex marriage rules — *and* with no bottleneck Founder Effects (heh).
Now call me all kinds of bad words, but the West will not end up in a good place after this rapacious nepotistic lot have run rampant through all our institutions for a few generations.
…the days of hearing the Eagles followed by The Bee Gees followed by Paul McCartney were over…
Griffin: I miss those days too. Here’s the top ten from the 1968 Billboard Hits. Rock, pop, soul, R&B, instrumental, and country music, most of which I heard on one radio station.
_________________________________________________
01 – The Beatles – Hey Jude
02 – Paul Mauriat – Love Is Blue
03 – Bobby Goldsboro – Honey
04 – Otis Redding – (Sittin’ On) Dock Of The Bay
05 – The Rascals – People Got To Be Free
06 – Cream – Sunshine Of Your Love
07 – Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass – This Guy’s In Love With You
08 – Hugo Montenegro – The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
09 – Simon & Garfunkel – Mrs. Robinson
10 – Archie Bell & The Drells – Tighten Up
11 – Jeannie C. Riley – Harper Valley P.T.A.
12 – O. C. Smith – Little Green Apples
13 – Tommy James & The Shondells – Mony Mony
14 – The Doors – Hello, I Love You
15 – Gary Puckett & The Union Gap – Young Girl
16 – The Box Tops – Cry Like A Baby
17 – The 5th Dimension – Stoned Soul Picnic
18 – Hugh Masekela – Grazing In The Grass
19 – The Grass Roots – Midnight Confessions
20 – Sly & The Family Stone – Dance To The Music
Youtube threw this song at me as a suggestion. It’s such a lovely ballad and example of Leo’s wonderful “bull frog croaking” low baritone voice.
Corrina, Corrina
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMHAGqXBNFY
It’s also annoying to me because I’ve heard Leo live two or three times prior to 2012, and he refused to sing a single note. Those Dutch know how to pay up or write a contract I guess.
The dynamics of the song are great. A select number of notes have a strong accented attack, but many of the notes, both guitar and singing, are down in the piano or pianissimo range.
I always knew that the song was not written by Leo but I didn’t know it was a Dylan song until I looked it up. The original Dylan and Kottke’s are like two entirely different songs.
Dylan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBORRH2l7-g
Leo’s wonderful “bull frog croaking” low baritone voice.
TommyJay:
As I recall and the web verifies, Kottke self-identified his voice as “geese farts on a muggy day.” I’m not sure what his pronouns are.
http://www.guitarmusic.org/kottke/gfarts.html
@huxley:
I like that link. If Jorn Barger (is he still around?) had taken up musicology, there would be more of this material out there.
Not much up on geese farting on a muggy day — roasting them seems to put a stop to it — but Humid Springtime out here is the season of frogs fornicating in drains. Some of the more intelligent avian predators hang around the exits and feast upon overworked frogs popping up for a restorative smoke.
huxley,
I think I read that from the cover notes on the Chewing Pine album. Could be wrong. Your reference pre-dates mine by several years.
I was wrong. Corrina, Corrina isn’t a Dylan song though the did perform it. It is a “traditional”(?) first recorded by Bo Carter.
Zaphod:
That was a clever link. If only we had more decisive refutations of claims such as “geese farts on a muggy day.”
Haven’t heard of Jorn Barger before. He seems to be my more famous doppelganger. We went to New College around the same time, he stuck it out at Stephen Gaskin’s Farm for six months, while I was content to visit, and we worked on computer games in the 80s.
Maybe I’ll try to look him up sometime. He’s in New Mexico.
I think I read that from the cover notes on the Chewing Pine album.
TommyJay:
As I recall, I read it on the back cover of a late 70s Kottke album. The photo was B&W and showed him close-up in profile drying off his dog at the beach.
Well you all can puzzle out the significance of “Jack Gets Up.” Frogs or geese or what?
https://youtu.be/ghHhRklLQzE
I’d like some Santa Claus-modified snow peas, please.
@huxley:
I had the idea you two might have crossed paths. IIRC Barger disappeared down a wormhole during an 80s Lisp Machines Era project attempting to achieve AI Takeoff by Taxonomising Everything and somehow recursed himself into some kind of fugue state which from time to time would output copious chunks of Robot Wisdom.
Came across his Finnegan’s Wake annotations in the mid-late 90s and became a fan for a while and then he disappeared.
Appears to have hopped from Monomania to Monomania… and unfortunately finally landed upon the most unprofitable monomania square of all and did not collect $200. Or just burned out. Dunno.
King Jay of Inslee – the other Governor of Death
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2021/03/13/is-wa-gov-jay-inslee-single-handedly-responsible-for-americas-covid-outbreak-n2586203
He’s safe, though, King Jay hasn’t been frisky with the other sex AFAWK.
Rufus T. Firefly on March 13, 2021 at 2:42 pm said:
And that day after school I walked to a music store and asked the guy there what I could afford for $20. He sold me a Hohner Marine Band harmonica for $7 and that’s how it all started.
You play harp? You might be interested in the electric harmonica I’ve developed: http://www.harmonicaster.com
It’s a bit more than $7, but then so is a Marine Band these days.
Johann Amadeus Metesky,
Wow! Are you in either video? The player or “Ray?” Based on the description and videos it appears you guys nailed it, including the name. Perfect!
I know it can be done downstream, with an inline electronic device, but did you put any thought in a switch to change keys on the harmonicaster itself, like the volume and tone control sliders? Sort of like a capo on a guitar?
Rufus T. Firefly, my playing skills aren’t good enough for demos, but then Leo Fender and Laurens Hammond couldn’t play the instruments they invented. The playing on those videos is by Carl Caballero, who fronts a band called the Boa Constrictors here in Detroit. I recorded him on a looper so I have a consistent standard for making videos with various pedals.
You change keys by swapping out the harmonica, which takes seconds. I’ve looked into pitch shifting, to see if one could transpose to a different key without having to switch harps. It’s theoretically possible with a pedal like a Boss Harmonist or EHX Pitchfork which would shift the amplified tone, but it might be confusing to the player’s ear because the harmonica in the Harmonicaster is still sounding in it’s natural key while the amplified tone is pitch shifted.
“you guys” is me, with some feedback from players, help from some folks doing digital design and Jeff Lace, at Lace Music, who has worked with me on developing the pickups. The latest revision uses a purpose-designed version of the Lace Alumitone pickup that is just 1/16″ thick and weigh less than a half ounce. Jeff and I think it’s the thinnest, lightest guitar-type pickup in existence.