The Apocalypse Is Nigh

[Dave James]

 

 

And here I'd been led to believe that Eric had kicked drugs.  What's next?  "Slowhand On Broadway - Clapton Does Show Tunes."

[JSngry]

Can he get Phil Spector out on furlough long enough to produce?

[felser]

Actually, we have been in the post-apocalypse era for a few years, and apocalyptic history suggests the next step would seem to be Sinatra covers.

 

[JSngry]

I think he should do Cream Unplugged.

[clifford_thornton]

[felser]

6 hours ago, JSngry said:

I think he should do Cream Unplugged.

Saw a very angry Peter Townshend in concert in the early 90's, moaning about Clapton going 10x platinum with Unplugged and his "bossa nova version of Layla" (have never forgotten that line).  I'm glad Clapton cleaned up and lived (and visually, he has aged really well), but I sure don't listen to anything he's done the past 45 years.

[JSngry]

Truthfully, I think that both the praise and the dislike around him are way out of proportion. He's an incredibly professional and sincere mid-level talent. Upper mid-level, if that makes sense. But not even in Cream did I feel like he was God....or even a good preacher. Not even.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

7 hours ago, felser said:

I laugh after about 3 or 4 minutes into it every time. This is some seriously bad singing.

[felser]

Just now, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I laugh after about 3 or 4 minutes into it every time. This is some seriously bad singing.

And he is clearly having fun, which he is entitled to.  Love his radio show - he has aged beautifully (even if his singing voice hasn't).   He did two albums after the Blood on the Tracks/Desire era I ever see myself returning to ("Infidels" and "Time Out of Mind"), but he'll always be the Man to me for his 60's work and what it meant culturally as well as musically.  "Like A Rolling Stone" is still an unmatched landmark to me for what it unleashed in rock music, musically, lyrically, and vocally.

[JSngry]

I think Dylan likes it when people laugh, I think that's part of what he does, it's built into so much of it. People who take him seriously without also hearing the really dry/arch whimsy in there...either they're not getting it or else I'm not.

Then again, I feel the same way about Roy Wood & ELO, and people tell me I'm nuts. Maybe so, but there are some things in life you just can't do unless there's a grin in there somewhere.

 

[felser]

1 minute ago, JSngry said:

I think Dylan likes it when people laugh, I think that's part of what he does, it's built into so much of it. People who take him seriously without also hearing the really dry/arch whimsy in there...either they're not getting it or else I'm not.

Then again, I feel the same way about Roy Wood & ELO, and people tell me I'm nuts. Maybe so, but there are some things in life you just can't do unless there's a grin in there somewhere.

Agreed on Dylan.  I find Roy Wood unwound, but then that's probably how he wants me to find him.  And I do listen to him (especially the Move, though that first ELO album was a trip, as is Boulders and some of the other early solo work).   There's a story about Dylan (possibly apocryphal, I realize), that says, when he had serious medical issues in the late 90's he "stared death in the face...and was fine with it.  Now he and death get together twice a week to sip brandy and tell stories".  He seems just totally comfortable in his own skin, and seems (rightly) to feel he has nothing left he has to prove.  The radio show is a riot, he has such a great dry, impish sense of humor.  That sense of humor goes back to the 60;s - watch some of his interviews from then from the Scorsese documentary "No Direction Home".  Also, Al Kooper's story about getting to play organ on "Like a Rolling Stone" is awesome.

 

[JSngry]

Maybe he wasn't grinning when he mad stuff like this, but I do more than grin, I ROTFLMFAO, sometimes dangerously so!

 

Presenting Eddie and the Falcons is one of the crowning achievements of 20th Century Pop (seriously), but it's not for everybody. You gotta be willing to look at it like...pouring salt in an open wound isn't necessarily cruel, it's also essentially what you do every time you fix a steak.

"Fate is not so helpless after all"....JEEEEESUSSSS!!!!!!

[felser]

70's Roy Wood 101 for under $20 (I have this, plus all the Move releases)

[JSngry]

You might need more Wizzard!

 

[JSngry]

I got the records, what I want is a serious DVD of all or most Roy Wood footages. The visuals that go along with the musics are just that much more! It's like the missing link between the Bonzos & ELO.

 

People be hatin' on ELO like they were some kind of serious drip thing, and yeah, there's that, but there's also some of the dryest uses of Beatlehooks every, you know they gotta be having a good laugh when they wrote that. And Roy Wood, geeeeesus, if you can't laugh along with that, then you for damn sure can't laugh along with Dylan, which to me means you're not really getting it.

Are there any laughs in Eric Clapton? Ever? I mean, the guy's just too damn earnest about it, always.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

ill take it for the cover, did he make it?

[mikeweil]

9 hours ago, JSngry said:

But not even in Cream did I feel like he was God....or even a good preacher. Not even.

My thoughts exactly!

[soulpope]

27 minutes ago, mikeweil said:

My thoughts exactly!

Seconded ....

[mjazzg]

2 minutes ago, soulpope said:

Seconded ....

Thirded. Never understood all the fuss about EC

[Big Beat Steve]

10 hours ago, JSngry said:

I got the records, what I want is a serious DVD of all or most Roy Wood footages. The visuals that go along with the musics are just that much more! It's like the missing link between the Bonzos & ELO.

 

That "Are You Ready To Rock" video sounds treacherously like lip-synching to playback, It's sooo much like the 45 (which I've spun countless times for my own amusement ever since i received that record in 1975 or so. It still gets surprised reactions from the crowd - and amused looks of "here did he dig THAT up?" from those really in the know - when it's being spun at the occasional rockabilly/real r'n'r record hop)

Edited October 13, 2018 by Big Beat Steve

[Scott Dolan]

13 hours ago, JSngry said:

Truthfully, I think that both the praise and the dislike around him are way out of proportion. He's an incredibly professional and sincere mid-level talent. Upper mid-level, if that makes sense. But not even in Cream did I feel like he was God....or even a good preacher. Not even.

I still don’t “get” the awe surrounding Clapton. I’ve always thought of him in the realm of Steve Miller and Bob Seger: decent but ultimately forgettable FM radio filler. 

[Dave James]

I'm a Clapton fan, but I don't start drooling on myself thinking about him.  IMO, Jeff Beck is a much better and a far more nuanced player.  Having said that,I don't think you can underestimate the effect he had on British rock and on the reemergence of the blues.  I also don't think you an give him too much credit for his charitable work via his Crossroads Foundation.  I can't think of anyone else in the music biz who's given back as much he has. 

[Scott Dolan]

Oh, make no mistake. I’m commenting on him as a songwriter/musician, not as a person. 

[clifford_thornton]

9 hours ago, mikeweil said:

My thoughts exactly!

Jack, Ginger, and some guy on guitar.

[sgcim]

18 hours ago, felser said:

Agreed on Dylan.  I find Roy Wood unwound, but then that's probably how he wants me to find him.  And I do listen to him (especially the Move, though that first ELO album was a trip, as is Boulders and some of the other early solo work).   There's a story about Dylan (possibly apocryphal, I realize), that says, when he had serious medical issues in the late 90's he "stared death in the face...and was fine with it.  Now he and death get together twice a week to sip brandy and tell stories".  He seems just totally comfortable in his own skin, and seems (rightly) to feel he has nothing left he has to prove.  The radio show is a riot, he has such a great dry, impish sense of humor.  That sense of humor goes back to the 60;s - watch some of his interviews from then from the Scorsese documentary "No Direction Home".  Also, Al Kooper's story about getting to play organ on "Like a Rolling Stone" is awesome.

 

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...