On the subject of weather ...

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Everyone gets a keepsake once in a while, even if it takes 63 years, uhum, POWERS that be allowing ...

China has their own collection.

[uwe]

I had no idea they had downed so many! But in a strict sense, those weren't US, but Taiwanese reconnaissance planes - at least that was the official blurb at the time (and the Taiwanese pilots had of course been trained in Texas).

It's human nature to wish to know more than the other person and have him/her not know that you know.


Yup, you can hear that Mike Batt did the arrangement. 

If it wasn't for that, the US, Russia, China, Israel, Iran + North Korea as well as anyone else of inquisitive nature could all agree on one mutually financed state-of-the-art huge spy satellite surveilling everything and the data being freely available to all of them with of course Wikileaks paying a moderate license fee for the rest of us.

I have lots of simple solutions for burning world problems like that. 

[uwe]

Never 'eard of it. But it's a real cool track.

[Dave W]

Never 'eard of it. But it's a real cool track.

Garage rock from 1967. It made the Top 40.

Trivia #1: The label on the original run read A Question of Tempature.

Trivia #2: The singer was Mike Appel who later became Bruce Springsteen's manager and had a big legal falling-out with him.

And who would some of us rather listen to than Springsteen? Sophie Tucker.

So Balloon Farm leads to Sophie Tucker. Now all you have to do is find a connection between Deep Purple and Sophie Tucker.

[westen44]

I went to the Steve Hoffman forums.  Someone said there was a rumor that Springsteen had said Deep Purple was a minor band not worthy of being in the RRHOF.  But not a single person could substantiate the rumor.  One person did note that Deep Purple could stomp Bruce Springsteen on stage without even plugging in their instruments. 

[uwe]

Two words: Steel Mill, Springsteen's early 70ies heavy rock band, I hear a lot more DP (and Grand Funk) than Led Zep in that, roaring Hammond and all.





So it's probably a load of crap, especially with New Jersey being traditional Deep Purple territory. Or maybe the Boss was just trying to get even.



But frankly it doesn't sound like something Springsteen would have ever let slip.

[westen44]

When Blackmore says he doesn't see what people see in Springsteen whatsover, I totally agree.  For so long, I was kind of a silent critic when it came to Bruce Springsteen.  I was around people who really liked him.  I didn't.  Once I was visiting a very close friend and she had Springsteen on.  I had to ask her if she would please take off the music.  It was actually rude, but I just couldn't help myself. 

[uwe]

I don't regard the Boss as a deity and it wasn't until the late 90ies or even later until I bought my first Springsteen album (a three CD compilation), I've only seen him live once and like many Europeans I heard the cover versions of his songs by Manfred Mann's Earth Band (Spirits in the Night & Blinded by the Light), The Pointer Sisters (Fire), Patti Smith (Because the Night) & The Hollies (4th of July, Asbury Park [Sandy]) long before I had heard anything from him (and when I finally did, I found his originals to those covers inferior). All these songs, however, contained lyric lines that struck me as poetic.

He's no doubt a storyteller and creator of images who taps on the core of the American soul/spirit. His lyrics can be John Steinbeck'esqe, the music that he adds to them otoh is just an easy-on-the-ear accompaniment, the E-Street band in its various incarnations is solid if uninspiring, essentially just a backing band, the arrangements - forgive me - very seldom transcend what a well-rehearsed bar band would come up with within minutes at a jam session. If Springsteen and the E-Street Band had come from Camden, UK, and not New Jersey, USA, they would have been described as a pub rock band in the 70ies. But has he written some good songs, some great lyrics (my favorite: "like a river that don't where it's going, I took a wrong turn and I just kept going" from Hungry Heart) and made a lot people happy in his stadium gigs along the way? Yes. Do I prefer Nils Lofgren albums or anything Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul have done more recently to anything that the Boss has released in a long time? Also yes. Ronnie Montrose once said that the E-Street Band is as much a musical corset doomed to always provide the same sound as AC/DC and I think that was a very perceptive observation by him.

Ritchie not liking Springsteen, well, take that with a pinch of salt, he dislikes a lot of things that are actually quite good. He used to be an opinionated smart-alec as a young man, now he's an opinionated old badger. And the way Springsteen ticks, he would have rather bitten off his tongue than say something similar about Ritchie or DP.

Kudos also for the Boss' self-deprecating humor sometimes, like when he said at one of his solo gigs "You know, I'm a total fraud, I've never spent a single day of work in a factory ... see, that's how good I am!"

[lowend1]

When Blackmore says he doesn't see what people see in Springsteen whatsover, I totally agree.  For so long, I was kind of a silent critic when it came to Bruce Springsteen.  I was around people who really liked him.  I didn't.  Once I was visiting a very close friend and she had Springsteen on.  I had to ask her if she would please take off the music.  It was actually rude, but I just couldn't help myself.

Try being a NJ native that despises not only the vast majority of his music, but his phoney-baloney "common man" persona as well.

[uwe]

OMG, John Fogerty didn't come from the rural South either and his accent is an invention of his. Nor did almost anyone of the Eagles stem from California.

Springsteen could watch and put things into words - a writer more not need to do does.

[westen44]

Try being a NJ native that despises not only the vast majority of his music, but his phoney-baloney "common man" persona as well.

I can't imagine that.  It's bad enough, though, to watch and see Springsteen representing all of America or at least trying to. 

[westen44]

OMG, John Fogerty didn't come from the rural South either and his accent is an invention of his. Nor did almost anyone of the Eagles stem from California.

Springsteen could watch and put things into words - a writer more not need to do does.

I read somewhere that Duck Dunn once told John Fogerty that there weren't any alligators in LA.  I don't know the exact context, but the point, of course, was that Fogerty's swamp rock was fake.  I doubt if the comment, however, was made in a genuinely critical way.  Like I said, I really don't know the context. 

[Dave W]

Try being a NJ native that despises not only the vast majority of his music, but his phoney-baloney "common man" persona as well.

Try being from the Twin Cities and disliking Prince.

[uwe]

Westheimer!

[uwe]

I read somewhere that Duck Dunn once told John Fogerty that there weren't any alligators in LA.  I don't know the exact context, but the point, of course, was that Fogerty's swamp rock was fake.  I doubt if the comment, however, was made in a genuinely critical way.  Like I said, I really don't know the context.

Duck Dunn's comment got me thinking.

https://faunafacts.com/alligators/are-there-alligators-in-california/


On the one hand:

Alligators and crocodiles are not native to California. There are no alligators and crocodiles in California except in zoos and in the homes of people who keep them illegally as pets. One might read an article about the California Crocodile, but this species is new, and there is no official word about it from the scientific community. In addition, this crocodile was not found in the US but Baja, California, in Mexico.

But on the other hand:

Yes, alligators can survive in California. The weather is ideal for the gators, and there are many bodies of fresh water in the state.

It snows in California, but it does not get as cold as it does in New York. On the south side of the state, snowfall happens rarely. If it does snow, the amount of snowfall is negligible.

So, how will the alligators survive? For one, there are more than 3,000 lakes and reservoirs in the state. Below are the biggest ones:

Mono Lake
Goose Lake
Honey Lake
Lake Tahoe
Salton Sea

All these lakes are teeming with wildlife, and there is no reason for a crocodile or alligator not to survive. In addition, there is plentiful food in the state. In addition to this, there are 100 rivers in the state. What this means is that alligators have plenty of options where to build a home in the state.


You would think that a similar sized mammal carnivore would have by now certainly made its way to the West Coast. Even the gators have made it to Texas. So why not warm Southern California? I mean they can't be all Confederates and/or white supremacists, can they?! 

******

PS: This thread is a good one. From Chinese balloons to rebel reptiles via WW I helmets and panning Springsteen, CCR + Prince along the way, with sufficient mandatory Deep Purple/Ritchie name checks. Yet we started with weather observation and are now again musing about Californian climate! It all makes sense in some twisted way. Glorious.



I think we've lost them, Comrade Captain, the insidious Americans have reverted to coded language!