So, what have you been listening to lately?

[morrow]

Loved the Band , studied Rick Danko , especially his New Orleans inspired tuba lines. Later I got to meet him , it didn't go well.
Sometimes it might be better not to meet your heroes.

[ajkula66]

[uwe]

Ah, everyone's favorite second league prog band!

[Dave W]

Billy Lee Riley's Red Hot (1957), with John Prine!

Later covered by Sam the Sham

[Alanko]

I've been enjoying an expanded edition of the Ramones' live album It's Alive.

A few things I'd never noticed before! Dee Dee plays in the middle of the bass neck, so often anything needing an A root note is played at the 7th fret of the D string. The drumming is also surprisingly light, rather than the frantic clatter of Motörhead et al. For a punk band the drums are often quite a skimpy beat that isn't always sitting on the beat. Finally, Johnny takes a few beats to home in on new chords. It is like he's adjusting how a hammer hits a nail. Interesting to hear how he voices certain chords as well.

Also, Dee Dee's 'OneTwoFreeFour' has nothing to do with the tempo of the song!

[ilan]

I liked other people's versions of their tunes better...for instance, Joan Baez' version of the Night They Drove old Dixie Down. Her voice put that one over the top.   

She could sing the Delaware phone book and it would still sound like the angels are singing.

[Pilgrim]

She could sing the Delaware phone book and it would still sound like the angels are singing.

Well....YEAH! Baez has a special voice. The twang of The Band did nothing for me.

Some people are greats. I remember seeing Orson Welles on the Dean Martin show, reading Shakespeare. It was wonderful, and it even captured the audience for that show....but he could read a phone book and make it sound interesting.

[ajkula66]

[ajkula66]

Ah, everyone's favorite second league prog band!

Given what most people consider to be the premier league prog, I'll stay away... ...far away.

Strangely enough I only like the first two Camel albums. They've pretty much lost me after that.

[Dave W]

[uwe]

Well, Lee wasn't exactly Johnny Winter on slide, but ... serviceable! 

You must be the only Yank on earth, Dave, who gives a damn about Dr Feelgood.  Someone thought it might be a good idea to have them open for Kiss on the Alive Tour 1975 - it wasn't. They wreaked havoc to a hotel room and Paul Stanley, aghast (you don't just break things for the heck of it, only if it serves to entertain a stadium!),



had them kicked off the tour pronto, with the Kiss management apologizing profusely to the hotel and paying for the damage.

[uwe]

I've been enjoying an expanded edition of the Ramones' live album It's Alive.

A few things I'd never noticed before! Dee Dee plays in the middle of the bass neck, so often anything needing an A root note is played at the 7th fret of the D string. The drumming is also surprisingly light, rather than the frantic clatter of Motörhead et al. For a punk band the drums are often quite a skimpy beat that isn't always sitting on the beat. Finally, Johnny takes a few beats to home in on new chords. It is like he's adjusting how a hammer hits a nail. Interesting to hear how he voices certain chords as well.

Also, Dee Dee's 'OneTwoFreeFour' has nothing to do with the tempo of the song!

The Ramones got lumped together with Punk due to superficial similarities, but in fact they were much more electrified late 60s bubblegum pop, and I mean that in the nicest and most appreciative of ways because I really think they were an American treasure. But essentially, they were a bare bones power pop band, and a great one at that. To me, the Ramones are closer to early Beach Boys than to, say, New York Dolls (also great), Sex  Pistols or The Clash.

Joey Ramone was one of the tallest rock lead vocalists ever at 1,98 meters or 6'6". He suffered from MFS or Marfan Syndrome (as had Abraham Lincoln, which puts him in good company), a multi-systemic genetic disorder that affects the connective tissue and lets you rocket in growth. That is why he was often so hunched.









I loved his voice. And he was an early Deep Purple fan to boot, what's not to like!

I already had that Ramones debut the week it came out, no one in Germany knew them back then, but I had been reading the Brit New Musical Express (NME) and they had really been hyping the Ramones pre-release. I wasn't disappointed, I thought they sounded great and extremely catchy.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/12/ramones-first-album-goes-gold-after-38-years

Interestingly, it came out at pretty much the same time as Judas Priest's Sin After Sin which had been lambasted by the NME. I, however, loved both albums, played them to death in the aftermath and couldn't see the conflict.

[doombass]

I've always been amazed by the stamina of performing those songs using downstrokes only:

[uwe]

Alan Lancaster and Rick Parfitt did that with Quo too, that is why the rhythm sounds so pushy and chugging, only Francis Rossi played up and down. His back and forth style and Rick's incessant downstrokes meshed beautifully for the classic Status Quo wall of sound.

[uwe]

Loved that track here: