The Apocalypse Is Nigh

[mikeweil]

1 hour ago, clifford_thornton said:

Jack, Ginger, and some guy on guitar.

Something like that ... 

[felser]

42 minutes ago, sgcim said:

Speaking of Al Kooper, I read, Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards, and he talked about how he and Paul Simon got their start in 'show biz' by playing pro gigs with Simon's father's band at catered affairs. Simon and Kooper (who were neighbors in Queens) would unplug their guitars when Simon's father's band was playing standards, and make believe they were playing (they didn't know the changes). Then, when the band took a break, Kooper and Simon would play and sing their little rock and/or roll songs for the kiddies, and make a nice buck for their little set.

I recently read the new, Authorized Paul Simon bio, and Al Kooper's name didn't come up once! What was that about? There were other problems with the Simon bio; glossing over the fact that the IMHO genius arr. of Scarborough Fair was actually stolen from a UK folksinger Martin Carthy with no credit or renumeration given to Carthy for years, until Carthy started to make a big stink about it. Carthy still didn't get a cent till for it for years, with Simon claiming that "it must have gotten lost in the mail".

As far as EC, I was recently told by a keyboard player, who was involved in that type of music, to check out what he believed to be EC's best playing, that of his work with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and just heard some of his regular pentatonic stuff played faster and louder, IMHO. I'd rather hear BB or Duane Allman any day.

In the words of Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, they thought of Cream as being an electric, group improvisation, jazz-type trio, with Clapton taking on the Ornette Coleman role in the group. 

Clapton hit a new low in songwriting with the nauseating 'Wonderful Tonight', which I was forced to play in a band I was in, triggering episodes of pukitude immediately following said rendition...

Good stuff, thanks.  I have the Al Kooper book, have never gotten around to reading it, but look forward to doing so.  Fascinating guy.  Classic (and correct) line about "Wonderful Tonight" triggering episodes of pukitude.  That one really does seem to be Clapton's artistic nadir.  Other blues-based rock guitarists I greatly prefer to Clapton along with Duane Allman: Mike Bloomfield, Rory Gallagher, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Alvin Lee, Warren Haynes, and others not immediately coming to mind.  Danny Kalb for that matter.  Plus that Hendrix guy.  To me, Clapton's best guitar work was Derek and the Dominos, and certainly some of that was because of Duane Allman.  I like a lot of Cream material, but a lot of that has to do with Jack Bruce and Felix Pappalardi and some good songwriting.

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, sgcim said:

As far as EC, I was recently told by a keyboard player, who was involved in that type of music, to check out what he believed to be EC's best playing, that of his work with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and just heard some of his regular pentatonic stuff played faster and louder,

For some reason, that album was hard to find here in the mid-70s, which was when I wanted to hear it. Took about a year before stumbling across it in a thrift shop. I was kind of, uh...."impressed". but more by how the guy from Fleetwood Mac didn't suck playing shuffles, at least not then.

I did like "Lay Down Sally", but then again, I'm a sucker for a good train beat, which he doesn't use, but every cover band I know does.

[felser]

48 minutes ago, JSngry said:

For some reason, that album was hard to find here in the mid-70s, which was when I wanted to hear it. Took about a year before stumbling across it in a thrift shop. I was kind of, uh...."impressed". but more by how the guy from Fleetwood Mac didn't suck playing shuffles, at least not then.

I did like "Lay Down Sally", but then again, I'm a sucker for a good train beat, which he doesn't use, but every cover band I know does.

Which reminds me - add Peter Green to my list!

[Dave James]

2 hours ago, felser said:

Which reminds me - add Peter Green to my list!

I second your nomination.  B.B. King once said that Peter Green was the only guitarist who "made him sweat".  I'd call that high praise indeed.  Green was a tone monster.

 

Edited October 14, 2018 by Dave James

[sgcim]

10 hours ago, felser said:

Good stuff, thanks.  I have the Al Kooper book, have never gotten around to reading it, but look forward to doing so.  Fascinating guy.  Classic (and correct) line about "Wonderful Tonight" triggering episodes of pukitude.  That one really does seem to be Clapton's artistic nadir.  Other blues-based rock guitarists I greatly prefer to Clapton along with Duane Allman: Mike Bloomfield, Rory Gallagher, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Alvin Lee, Warren Haynes, and others not immediately coming to mind.  Danny Kalb for that matter.  Plus that Hendrix guy.  To me, Clapton's best guitar work was Derek and the Dominos, and certainly some of that was because of Duane Allman.  I like a lot of Cream material, but a lot of that has to do with Jack Bruce and Felix Pappalardi and some good songwriting.

A good companion piece to read with the Al Kooper book would be Steve Katz' autobiography, 'Blood Sweat and Rock and Roll'. The amount of hate that went on between Kooper, and Bobby Colomby, and Steve Katz was astounding. Their differing accounts of the day Al Kooper was fired from his own band (BS&T) is confusing, until you hear an actual tape on you tube of how bad Al Kooper's singing sounded live back then in a BS&T concert on the East Coast. Kooper's singing improved after that, but he butchers almost every tune they played. I can understand a guy like Colomby (whose father was Monk's manager) being embarrassed to be on the stand with Kooper, after growing up on Ray Charles, Ella, Sarah, etc...

That was some beautiful Peter Green playing on that video Dave posted. It's nice to hear a blues/rock player with a light, sensitive touch for a change. Nice simple, swinging drumming with an equally light touch, too.

[felser]

11 hours ago, sgcim said:

A good companion piece to read with the Al Kooper book would be Steve Katz' autobiography, 'Blood Sweat and Rock and Roll'. The amount of hate that went on between Kooper, and Bobby Colomby, and Steve Katz was astounding. Their differing accounts of the day Al Kooper was fired from his own band (BS&T) is confusing, until you hear an actual tape on you tube of how bad Al Kooper's singing sounded live back then in a BS&T concert on the East Coast. Kooper's singing improved after that, but he butchers almost every tune they played. I can understand a guy like Colomby (whose father was Monk's manager) being embarrassed to be on the stand with Kooper, after growing up on Ray Charles, Ella, Sarah, etc...

That was some beautiful Peter Green playing on that video Dave posted. It's nice to hear a blues/rock player with a light, sensitive touch for a change. Nice simple, swinging drumming with an equally light touch, too.

Started reading the Kooper book (which is a hoot, as expected), and just ordered the Katz book, which I was not familiar with, thanks!

[sgcim]

On 10/14/2018 at 2:44 PM, felser said:

Started reading the Kooper book (which is a hoot, as expected), and just ordered the Katz book, which I was not familiar with, thanks!

Let me know why you think Simon didn't mention the duo he had with Al Kooper to the writer of his bio. Here's Simon on SNL last weekend doing a re-arrangement of one of his songs. It has his close friend Phillip Glass written all over it, considering that PS has admitted that he can't read or notate music.

 

[Teasing the Korean]

The Christmas album can't be any worse than his other stuff, with the exception that it may contain some songs by professional songwriters. 

[mikeweil]

On 14.10.2018 at 9:27 AM, sgcim said:

That was some beautiful Peter Green playing on that video Dave posted. It's nice to hear a blues/rock player with a light, sensitive touch for a change. Nice simple, swinging drumming with an equally light touch, too.

The general lack of  this sensitivity and lightness is what drove me away from rock music. 

[JSngry]

9 hours ago, sgcim said:

Let me know why you think Simon didn't mention the duo he had with Al Kooper to the writer of his bio. Here's Simon on SNL last weekend doing a re-arrangement of one of his songs. It has his close friend Phillip Glass written all over it, considering that PS has admitted that he can't read or notate music.

 

I saw that the other night and thought the same thing. I usually don't care for Glass, but maybe that's because his stuff goes on too long without moving enough (for my taste) for the time it takes. But this one worked for me in a nice way, and reinforced the notion I've had that there's really no excuse for pop songs not having musical imagination, no excuse at all.

Now, who do you think did "Bridge Over Troubled Water"? That was funny to watch (and sad, his voice is all but gone), there's this groove set up that is doing one thing and then all of a sudden Simon starts singing "When you're lonely, feeling small..." and there's a palpable moment of shock on everybody's part, the audience saying waaaait a minute should we applaud to show recognition (and it took a second or two before they did, recognize and the applaud) and Simon looking like wow, they're not going to applaud.

I have no problem with him probably being a semi-ethical egocentric asshole, but he's still a semi-ethical egocentric asshole with intelligence and taste. If we have to have semi-ethical egocentric assholes (and the history of life suggests that we do), let them have intelligence and taste.

2 hours ago, mikeweil said:

The general lack of  this sensitivity and lightness is what drove me away from rock music. 

What drove me away was people projecting that they had more than they did, and audiences getting on board because hey, look at us, we're with them, and in the end nobody really had shit or really did shit. They all just fueled each other's basic realtive mediocrity.

I'll take Rumours over anything Fleetwood Mac did with or without Peter Green. Peter Green, yeah, nice player, but who's a more realized thing - Fleetwood Mac as a middle-tier semi-interesting "blues-rock" band or Fleetwood Mac as a moment-defining Pop band?

I'll take the pop band, thanks, because that shit was inspired to be more than even more competent mediocrity. It didn't last, it didn't have the underpinnings to last, bu for that moment, hey.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

27 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I saw that the other night and thought the same thing. I usually don't care for Glass, but maybe that's because his stuff goes on too long without moving enough (for my taste) for the time it takes. But this one worked for me in a nice way, and reinforced the notion I've had that there's really no excuse for pop songs not having musical imagination, no excuse at all.

Now, who do you think did "Bridge Over Troubled Water"? That was funny to watch (and sad, his voice is all but gone), there's this groove set up that is doing one thing and then all of a sudden Simon starts singing "When you're lonely, feeling small..." and there's a palpable moment of shock on everybody's part, the audience saying waaaait a minute should we applaud to show recognition (and it took a second or two before they did, recognize and the applaud) and Simon looking like wow, they're not going to applaud.

I have no problem with him probably being a semi-ethical egocentric asshole, but he's still a semi-ethical egocentric asshole with intelligence and taste. If we have to have semi-ethical egocentric assholes (and the history of life suggests that we do), let them have intelligence and taste.

I'm sorry, but watching Simon doing this song is just like seeing him give the middle finger to Art Garfunkel. As in, "Hey, my last performance on SNL so I'm going to do your signature song even though I cannot sing it well and never really sang it well. Fuck you Art".

He could've done 100 other songs he wrote but he picked this one. Brilliant musician. Absolute asshole.

[JSngry]

I'm sure that Art Garfunkle has two functioning middle fingers of his own and knows how to use them, so that'll be their business.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Yeah, but Art takes the high road (sometimes a little too "high"). Simon has been the petty a-hole about that particular song. Always has been and probably will be until he's gone.

[JSngry]

And god will never forgive him for that. I know I won't. I can't.

[felser]

Back to Fleetwood Mac.  Yeah, "Rumours", one of the all-time greats for sure.  But I'll take "Then Play On" over anything else the Buckingham-Nicks group ever did.  On that  one, they had moved beyond being a Blues Rock group into something new and exhilirating.  Danny Kirwan as much as or more than Peter Green.  And I'd take the Danny Kirwan-centric albums, "Future Games", "Bare Trees" (both with Bob Welch), and "Kiln House" (with Jeremy Spencer doing his best work ever", especially "Future Games", which is a stunning achievement.  Sometimes, that is the only album I want to listen to.

 

17 minutes ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

Yeah, but Art takes the high road (sometimes a little too "high"). Simon has been the petty a-hole about that particular song. Always has been and probably will be until he's gone.

For all his talent, Simon has never struck me as a guy I'd want to hang out with, the way even a Clapton does.

Edited October 16, 2018 by felser

[JSngry]

I can't/won't argue for or against any of that, but for me personally, it offers me nothing that I need/want. "Rock" as such never did, really. Hendrix, yeah, but then he died (and really, how "rock" was he? I thnk that his audience framed him as that so they could feel comfortable). Zepplin made some "thinking man's" records which I can enjoy on a per-song basis. But for me, the (on the whole) whole thing just seems like well-financed over-achievers to be. And what sucks is how the whole "rock" thing generally left Pop to the jerks.

I'm speaking broadly of course, but all these "white guys" trying to make serious "rock" music by bypassing Pop altogether by being "blues-based" was, imo, trying to cut in line. Not questioning the sincerity, but it really does not interest me.

[sgcim]

1 hour ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

Yeah, but Art takes the high road (sometimes a little too "high"). Simon has been the petty a-hole about that particular song. Always has been and probably will be until he's gone.

I read Garfunkel's recent memoir, and he doesn't take Simon's treatment of him lying down. When I finished the book, I felt like I should go to the next Garfunkel concert just to spite Simon. Simon resented any of Garfunkel's accomplishments, a graduate degree from Columbia (when Simon dropped out of Queens College after one semester), a great film role in Catch-22 (when Simon's attempt at acting was left on the editing room floor) , and finally a starring role in a Nicholas Roeg film, which was the final straw, and Artie was kicked out of the duo. Garfunkel's listening habits listed in his book were very sophisticated, dismissing Simon's hinting that AG was a musical simpleton.

I'm afraid to watch Simon's performance of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water". As Kevin said, his choice of that song was a final F-You to Garfunkel, probably after reading Garfunkel's poetic memoir...

[Guy Berger]

10 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I'm sorry, but watching Simon doing this song is just like seeing him give the middle finger to Art Garfunkel. As in, "Hey, my last performance on SNL so I'm going to do your signature song even though I cannot sing it well and never really sang it well. Fuck you Art".

He could've done 100 other songs he wrote but he picked this one. Brilliant musician. Absolute asshole.

It's one of the best songs Simon ever wrote.  I don't really understand the big deal about this, or care to understand

[Simon Weil]

19 hours ago, JSngry said:

I'll take Rumours over anything Fleetwood Mac did with or without Peter Green. Peter Green, yeah, nice player, but who's a more realized thing - Fleetwood Mac as a middle-tier semi-interesting "blues-rock" band or Fleetwood Mac as a moment-defining Pop band?

I'll take the pop band, thanks, because that shit was inspired to be more than even more competent mediocrity. It didn't last, it didn't have the underpinnings to last, bu for that moment, hey.

40 years ago, I compared Rumours to For What It's Worth, saying that Fleetwood Mac was representative of Rock not believing in anything anymore, while it had previously on (e.g.) the Buffalo Springfield record. I got laughed at for my troubles - that's when I stopped believing in Rock, asserting that people didn't have anything to say, but they were very good at saying it.

[felser]

24 minutes ago, Simon Weil said:

40 years ago, I compared Rumours to For What It's Worth, saying that Fleetwood Mac was representative of Rock not believing in anything anymore, while it had previously on (e.g.) the Buffalo Springfield record. I got laughed at for my troubles - that's when I stopped believing in Rock, asserting that people didn't have anything to say, but they were very good at saying it.

That's a pretty good description of 1977 vs. 1967 in general.  Very different albums for very different times.  I wouldn't want to be without either album, but there isn't much else from 1977 rock I need, where I need hundreds of other albums from 1967 rock.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

9 hours ago, Guy Berger said:

It's one of the best songs Simon ever wrote.  I don't really understand the big deal about this, or care to understand

The key word here is "wrote". That has always been Art Garfunkel's song. Simon may have written it, but Garfunkel made it the hit it was. You're right it's one of Simon's best written songs. It is not, however, one of his best performed songs... for like... forever. He's tried to sing it in a different key but it just doesn't come off right. I think that's another reason why he hates Garfunkel's vocal treatment:  he can't hit those notes so he really can't do it without Art Garfunkel.

[Simon Weil]

4 hours ago, felser said:

That's a pretty good description of 1977 vs. 1967 in general. 

Thanks.

[Scott Dolan]

I love the controversy and scorn on display here over a singer singing a song that he wrote. 

[Dan Gould]

you forgot "singing a song ... very poorly that he wrote."

For the big Simon fans who are catching this last ... whatever it is ... is his voice as shot as it seems on this SNL clip or is it just that he never had the voice for this composition, and the ravages of age has rendered him Dylan-esque, and not in a good way?