They Might Be Giants put on a great show last night. I did secure my photo pass so I was able to shoot the concert. Sadly, the barricade that is usually in place at The Meridian was nowhere to be seen. That is usually the primo spot to be in for shooting the shows there, especially the big draws like TMBG. It creates a jostle free zone for photographers and lets you have some flexibility.
With the barricade gone I has to jockey for position at the front of the stage which was a huge pain. Still, got some good shots…
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With the purchase of my new car came the added bonus of an XM radio with a three month subscription.
Since I’ve never really been too keen on owning an iPod (which I do) and amassing a huge personal collection of digitized music (which I haven’t) XM has been a great boon to my music listening. Hours upon hours of commercial free music have successfully lured me back from my recent addiction to talk radio and introduced me to many new favorites as well as rekindling my interest in some old friends.
Just the other day I was introduced to The Move which is a band I probably *should* have been aware of 30 years ago.
As I was listening to a version of “Do Ya” which I have always associated with Electric Light Orchestra I was struck by the fact that not only was the song one I knew, but the musical and vocal styling were hauntingly familiar. It was like listening to ELO without the string section and the polish and production values that made them a huge success in the 70’s and early 80’s.
Of course this made perfect sense once I verified (via the WWW) that The Move was fronted by none other than Roy Wood. After a little research I learned that Jeff Lynn joined up with Roy Wood toward the end of the band’s career and it’s obvious to me it was he who transitioned The Move into the better known, more widely acclaimed ELO.
And last week I was was listening to the live version of 21st Century Schizoid Man performed by Greg Lake (not with King Crimson) that must have gone on for over 10 minutes.
XM is rekindling a sense of wonder and joy in my music listening that I thought had gone the way of the Dodo and 70’s style album rock (a la late night KLOL). I wasn’t sure if I was going to go ahead and subscribe when the free trial was over but after 3 months I was hooked. When the sales monkey from XM called to let me know my free trial was expiring I signed up for a full year.
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For some reason the song “There’s Only One Way To Rock” by Sammy Hagar has setup shot in my forebrain (prosencephalon) and keeps repeating “Crank up the drums, crank out the bass, crank up my Les Paul in your face” …
I don’t even LIKE this song! And I am certainly not a Sammy Hagar fan.
There may very well be only one way to rock, and I am sure that I’ve long ago forgotten what it was. I do know this, though…it wasn’t Sammy who let me in on the secret.
HIE THEE HENCE, METAL POSEUR AND LEAVE MY BRAIN BE!!!!
This got me thinking about Van Halen. When David Lee Roth left and Sammy stepped in, Van Halen officially died for me.
I remember the first time I heard Van Halen. It was in my friend’s 1974 Dodge Challenger. The year was 1978 and he had just bought the 8-Track and we were cruising around town listening to it. At the time I was just weaning myself off of Kiss and moving into my art rock phase. I remember looking at the production credits and seeing that the album was produced by Gene Simmons. It was an impressive tape, I must say. The only Van Halen I ever owned or liked.
I even remember the urban legend that Kiss and Van Halen were actually the same band…there was some deep controversy surrounding that rumor until it was finally dispelled satisfactorily. This was in the pre-Internet days. You kids today have it EASY. Back then you didn’t get a humility inducing e-mail directing you to a link at Snopes. We relied on sources like Rolling Stone Magazine and such for our facts. And that was only if you could afford to pick up a copy or browse the latest issue at the drug store quick enough not to get the bum’s-rush from the shop-keep.
Once my brain got to thinking about 8-Tracks I regressed to the time I was at my neighbor’s house in 1976. Peter Frampton Comes Alive had just been released and it was playing in the back room on his 8-Track player.
We must have let it play through 5 or 6 times (for reasons any child of the 70’s can relate to) so it became somewhat ingrained into my adolescent brain.
To this day, whenever I hear the song “Do You Feel Like We Do”, my mind puts in the audible click where the 8-Track manufacturer had to fade the song down, change tracks and fade back up on the next seeing as how there was not enough space to contain the whole song in a single track.
Speaking of Frampton, I just heard “Do You Feel Like We Do” on a XM Radio rebroadcast of American Top 40. I’d forgotten that pop radio often created short 3-4 minute remixes of the longer songs for airplay. Seems they didn’t want to play the full 14+ minute version. For the record, the short version sucks mightily.
I leave you with this recent Geico commercial which clearly shows that there’s more than one way to rock….
