Gene Simmons: Rock Is Finally Dead

[uwe]

The Last Pigeon Outpost - LOL!!!

Malls, don't start me on those, they were invented for wimmin or something. I never like to go there (they are the concept of a department store blown out of all proportion and I didn't even like department stores when they were still prevalent), Edith does (which proves my point). I'd rather spend a quarter of an hour looking for an illegal place to park, catch a parking ticket and walk to a couple of shops in the rain. I don't like the absence of real daylight and outside climate in huge buildings, nor of car traffic on streets, so malls have a hard time with me.

That new Neil Diamond CD is real nice. It sounds like it came out in 1971 in a good way. Don Was really captured Diamond's essence.

[OldManC]

That new Neil Diamond CD is real nice. It sounds like it came out in 1971 in a good way. Don Was really captured Diamond's essence.

That's my favorite era of Neil's career so I'll have to check it out. See, we can agree on some things!

[uwe]

Have I ever doubted that, you despicable conservative beelzebub?!!! 

Hey, I even listened yesterday to two CDs of Uncle Ted's between-songs diatribes on his recent Ultralive Ballistic Rock or whatever it is called. If only Ted talked less and Derek St. Holmes sang more ... But what I did notice is that the way Nugent works an audience - NRinAneness aside - owes more to what, say, James Brown did in his soul revue or how the J. Geils Band used to do it than to a classic metal approach. Even the music is in its frenziness (but all the same grooviness) closer to James Brown live than, say, your classic hard rock suspects. So his mouthings about playing "soul music" or "Motown" (even on this CD) are not without merit if you do not so much apply it to the type of music but how it is played.

Where were we? Ah yes, the new Neil Diamond.

You can hear two songs here and they aren't even the best ones on the CD:

http://www.neildiamond.com/music/melody-road/

And there are two vids here:

http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/514647/Neil-Diamond-comeback-single-Melody-Road

I know that old Neil is always a bit on the corny-o-meter, but I'm a sucker for his voice.

[OldManC]

owes more to what, say, James Brown did in his soul revue or how the J. Geils Band used to do it than to a classic metal approach. Even the music is in its frenziness (but all the same grooviness) closer to James Brown live than, say, your classic hard rock suspects. So his mouthings about playing "soul music" or "Motown" (even on this CD) are not without merit if you do not so much apply it to the type of music but how it is played.

Those are perfect examples. Politics aside I think Nugent's upbringing in Michigan made for an interesting cultural homogeneity that would surprise some. His music has a groove that definitely owes a lot more to Motown than Metal.

I first heard Neil in the mid 70s (his Love at the Greek album was huge - mom's everywhere played it in their station wagons so their kids couldn't escape it) and the schmaltz was pretty evident, but I heard something in his delivery that made me seek him out once I was buying records on my own. When I heard Hot August Night and the studio albums that made up that material, I was hooked.  I bought his records right along with my Sabbath, Cooper, and KISS albums. The guy in my local record shop thought I was nuts.

[uwe]

LOL - I can relate! Edith is still wondering today whether my ability to hear Miles Davis, Scorpions, Bob Dylan, New York Dolls, Carpenters and some weird prog in a row on one single afternoon (only Herr Zimmermann would find her favor) is a sign

- that I have climbed new heights of an eclectic music-Zen state most lesser mortals are barred from ever even getting near,

- or, more likely, that I am just totally indiscriminate in my music tastes and simply like something blaring in the background!

Anyways, I'm seeing Accept in a few hours, they now have a yank (and, of course, staunch gun control opponent ... Baltes, the German bassist, on him: "We avoid discussing things like that in the band, cause we can never agree!") singing for them who is not doing too bad a job! (Bit as if Udo Dirkschneider could sing which of course he never could!)







That music is comic book-inane, but pleasantly so!  A guilty pleasure. I saw them last sometime in the early 80ies opening for Saxon and Judas Priest who were then touring their much underrated Point of Entry album.

[lowend1]

[Pilgrim]

- or, more likely, that I am just totally indiscriminate in my music tastes and simply like something blaring in the background!

My wife is in no doubt.  She regards me as a continual source of noise.  If I don't create it myself, I generally seek it out.

[uwe]

Oh, that is him! What a find!!! He and Accept are a good match both visually and musically, there is an obvious rapport on stage, they played a lot of stuff from the last three CDs with him plus the obvious Udo-era hits which he delivered well as well. Accept never reached a Scorpions type status in Germany (or anywhere else), but they had the Langen Stadthalle close to filled and that means an audience of 1.500+ on a Monday evening who all knew the more recent stuff. For a band that never had a hit in the charts and peaked commercially 30 years ago, I think neither Mark Tornillo nor his Kraut mates need to complain at this rate.

[uwe]

This fits with the initial subject of the thread: I read today on the business pages of a newspaper that 2014 is likely to be the first year since platinum sales were recorded that will not feature a single platinum album. If Beyonce and Lorde are lucky, they might each make it with their 2013 releases that need to hit 800,000 sales each, but it's unlikely at this point. Only individual songs seem to attain platinum status anymore, this year it is something like 60 songs, last year it was something like 80 platinum "singles", but only a handful of platinum albums.

Does anybody remember the time when more or less every household had a Dark Side of the Moon or a Frampton Comes Alive? I used to mock people who had them!

I don't believe that in the future albums will leave a similar cultural imprint and that kind of saddens me. Yeah, laugh all you will, "Frampton", "cultural" and "imprint".

[lowend1]

Oh, that is him! What a find!!! He and Accept are a good match both visually and musically, there is an obvious rapport on stage, they played a lot of stuff from the last three CDs with him plus the obvious Udo-era hits which he delivered well as well. Accept never reached a Scorpions type status in Germany (or anywhere else), but they had the Langen Stadthalle close to filled and that means an audience of 1.500+ on a Monday evening who all knew the more recent stuff. For a band that never had a hit in the charts and peaked commercially 30 years ago, I think neither Mark Tornillo nor his Kraut mates need to complain at this rate.

Yeah, I spent many a night in the NJ clubs back in the early 1980s, when Tornillo and TT Quick were a mainstay. They initially started out as an AC/DC tribute of sorts.

[Dave W]

This fits with the initial subject of the thread: I read today on the business pages of a newspaper that 2014 is likely to be the first year since platinum sales were recorded that will not feature a single platinum album. ...

That would be a good thing, if true.

Nothing to do with rock being dead, of course. Just another sign of an outdated business model.

[Basvarken]

+1 


Rock doesn't need to worry. There's lots of talent ready to take over the torch.
(just not sure if Accept or any of the other dinosaurs will survive, Uwe...  )

[uwe]

I dunno, but I wouldn't have minded a couple of platinum (or even just gold) records in my time, they make nice wall hangers ...

[uwe]

+1 


Rock doesn't need to worry. There's lots of talent ready to take over the torch.
(just not sure if Accept or any of the other dinosaurs will survive, Uwe...  )

Let's discuss that in thirty years from now, Rob, when The Warning still have sales and sell out 1.500 seaters. People will then surely have copies of that youtube vid still at home and take it out to marvel at it regularly.

Dinosaurs can be a dogged breed. Their extinction was last proclaimed in 1977 by punk, yet it seems that the scaly ones have outlived what the mohawked newcomer rodents proclaimed at the time. 

[uwe]

Gotta resurrect this to make a point:

For all those who believe that Gene Simmons is a bad bassist ...



I think he's quite busy, melodic and - even for 1974 when this was recorded - endearingly old-fashioned. More Macca than Geezer Butler. The album "Dressed to Kill" (my first Kiss album and I listened to it intently) is full with good time-bass lines like that. The "Demon's" bass playing was utterly undemonic, he wouldn't have sounded out of place with Chicago. Sheesh, he even doubled vocal lines!