The People Most Likely To Write A Great Love Song Are The Most Likely To Embarrass You As A Tastemaker (1 Viewer)

[rockaction]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g_TVRGWcfk

Bernadette is a total love song. Autobiographical, raw, perfect.  

 

[Uruk-Hai]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g_TVRGWcfk

Bernadette is a total love song. Autobiographical, raw, perfect.  

Levi wasn't as versatile as contemporaries like Marvin Gaye or Otis Redding or Mick Jagger, though he could slink around better than someone like Wilson Pickett (who was basically what a jackhammer would sound like if it could sing). But he knew his strengths and so did Motown. And he had a unique vocal stomp - I'm sure there's a technical term for it, but he would lean hard on a word that made the beat work. Never more apparent than in this song. I think it was Dave Marsh who said that this record was "a black man singing Dylan". 

 

[NCCommish]

To get to what i think the OP was about. In a society where plastic is king and everything is disposable including relationships people don't want to believe in things they are not sure they'll ever have. it's easier that way. Plus as a country we have always had a bit of a puritanical streak that inhibits free expression of our feelings for each other. And of course those forces come together to make it so anybody who does express themselves is made fun of.

The exception being times of crisis or after some horrific event. Even tough guys are allowed to show their feelings after the death of a bunch of school kids or 3000 people in a city they've never been to or met.

 

[rockaction]

To get to what i think the OP was about. In a society where plastic is king and everything is disposable including relationships people don't want to believe in things they are not sure they'll ever have. it's easier that way. Plus as a country we have always had a bit of a puritanical streak that inhibits free expression of our feelings for each other. And of course those forces come together to make it so anybody who does express themselves is made fun of.

The exception being times of crisis or after some horrific event. Even tough guys are allowed to show their feelings after the death of a bunch of school kids or 3000 people in a city they've never been to or met.

I think this captures what the OP was about and how those forces come together to make fun of those that express themselves in art. I hope that changes, but that is a large hope, maybe for an expatriate only. 

Times of crisis need not be the only time we tell each other how much we love and need each other. Just my two cents.  

 

[NCCommish]

For well you know it's a fool who plays it cool by making his life a little colder.

 

[rockaction]

For well you know it's a fool who plays it cool by making his life a little colder.

I was thinking of The Oranges Band, "Oh, Madalene" when I wrote the thread. There aren't links to it, but it's pretty freaking cool if you can find it. Lookout! Records was once easily accessible but now notoriously tough for finding online. Anyway, it's a love letter to his daughter, it seems.  

http://www.allmusic.com/album/all-around-mw0000026011

 

[wikkidpissah]

I think this captures what the OP was about and how those forces come together to make fun of those that express themselves in art. I hope that changes, but that is a large hope, maybe for an expatriate only. 

Times of crisis need not be the only time we tell each other how much we love and need each other. Just my two cents.  

The medium matters. As my best friend has been quoting back @ me since i said it 40some yrs ago when i was basically in the blues business, "if the blues aint done right, it's just complaining".

I have been on this in music threads before. The difference between the music i like and that of most of the people on these boards, is consideration of the audience. The reason there is such a wide gap between good and great music is that art wants to be honest but it doesnt get to be heard in a mass market unless it's played over&over&over by the artist on the road to acceptance, which brings in an artistic version of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Pure expression is tempered by performance and reaction. Therefore, there is veryveryvery little raw. There is however a whole bunch of lazy.

Now, much of this is because of the money. Terribly few of the people who ultimately bring a musical artist to a mass audience do so for artistic reasons and therefore are unlikely to allow the artists to do the most they can with what they have for purely financial reasons. This resulted, at about the time i left this biz (not long after the purge of serious musical acts @ Warner/Reprise) in the mid 70s, in a failure to encourage great artists toward greatness first (Springsteen was probably the last) for the first time since the British Invasion. Along with the punk ethic and the general social trend of "this is who i am - deal with it" electric music left classical ambitions for personal ones. Posterity is now accidental.

If one does not consider audience in making performance art, one is a simply a fool. And there arent as many compelling fools as the fools think there are. I hear it in the so very many thrusts at the temporary by those with the talent to reach for the eternal. It's frankly disgusting and almost criminal to an old A&R man that Sufjan Stevens has been allowed to canoodle without direction for almost 20 years without touching us all and lifting many as he could with his harmonic & poetic gifts. There is no pressure for an established artist to be better with each proceeding recording, no trend toward reaching ever higher as there should have been with rock as there was with jazz (even at risk of dead end & destruction). THAT is performance art. There is no raw, and when there is, it only happens once and we dont see it. This is about care, posterity, human progress. Get off my lawn....

 

[rockaction]

The medium matters. As my best friend has been quoting back @ me since i said it 40some yrs ago when i was basically in the blues business, "if the blues aint done right, it's just complaining".

I have been on this in music threads before. The difference between the music i like and that of most of the people on these boards, is consideration of the audience. The reason there is such a wide gap between good and great music is that art wants to be honest but it doesnt get to be heard in a mass market unless it's played over&over&over by the artist on the road to acceptance, which brings in an artistic version of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Pure expression is tempered by performance and reaction. Therefore, there is veryveryvery little raw. There is however a whole bunch of lazy.

Now, much of this is because of the money. Terribly few of the people who ultimately bring a musical artist to a mass audience do so for artistic reasons and therefore are unlikely to allow the artists to do the most they can with what they have for purely financial reasons. This resulted, at about the time i left this biz (not long after the purge of serious musical acts @ Warner/Reprise) in the mid 70s, in a failure to encourage great artists toward greatness first (Springsteen was probably the last) for the first time since the British Invasion. Along with the punk ethic and the general social trend of "this is who i am - deal with it" electric music left classical ambitions for personal ones. Posterity is now accidental.

If one does not consider audience in making performance art, one is a simply a fool. And there arent as many compelling fools as the fools think there are. I hear it in the so very many thrusts at the temporary by those with the talent to reach for the eternal. It's frankly disgusting and almost criminal to an old A&R man that Sufjan Stevens has been allowed to canoodle without direction for almost 20 years without touching us all and lifting many as he could with his harmonic & poetic gifts. There is no pressure for an established artist to be better with each proceeding recording, no trend toward reaching ever higher as there should have been with rock as there was with jazz (even at risk of dead end & destruction). THAT is performance art. There is no raw, and when there is, it only happens once and we dont see it. This is about care, posterity, human progress. Get off my lawn....

I take your points and want to post this:  

Okay, so if "Chicago" has made me -- literally -- cry out loud since 2007, then what? Where are we with our disagreement? 

I don't think we do disagree. I think maybe we can't settle it in writing, and I'm not always sure what you're trying to say, but can you see my point? Artists like Sufjan are exactly what I'm trying to encourage.  

We should take a Turing test of some sort, because it seems to me that we're on the same page here.  

 

[wikkidpissah]

I take your points and want to post this:  

Okay, so if "Chicago" has made me -- literally -- cry out loud since 2007, then what? Where are we with our disagreement? 

I don't think we do disagree. I think maybe we can't settle it in writing, and I'm not always sure what you're trying to say, but can you see my point? Artists like Sufjan are exactly what I'm trying to encourage.  

We should take a Turing test of some sort, because it seems to me that we're on the same page here.  

I'm going to break a rule for you, sorta name a name i'm legally not supposed to name, which i've avoided doing in my 10 years on this board, many tho the times i've wanted to. That's how important my point.

When i was in the music business, i heard one of my company's clients, a large, weird looking gal with immense talent, just exploding with expressive volatility. Turns out she had jammed regularly with Hendrix @ after-hours clubs in the Village during the 60s, after which he was often heard to complain "cant stay widdat #####". The last word's the key, tho - sweet, funny gal who would not let King nor fool #### with one thread of her sound, her approach. It was fair, tho - a woman in those days couldnt do anything special without men jumpin all over her saying how it could be better. Wrote half a play on the subject, matter of fact, using how Byron & Percy jumped all over Mary Shelley's writing of Frankenstein to make the point.

Cozied up to her, got to know her, made her laugh. She was such a King ##### and that werent gonna change but i knew she and the world were gonna be damned by that. Wanted the comfort of my gig, but needed to apply my talentless ### to gettin this gal to everybody cuz the world had to hear her and that required getting to her and that meant getting her away from the the folks who were running her (or paying her to run herself.....into the ground). Got caught, got sued out of the business, cost myself millions of dollars cuz almost the entire music biz had already said yes to me and i was barely 20 yrs old, i was gonna be David Geffen without the taste for ####.

Didn't matter, this'all had to get to everybody, I was riding that range horse to the Derby, and i'd do exactly the same thing again. Art obliges us even in the presenting/packaging end to take it thru and past every frontier it can be brought. That's been the obligation, the dictate of life since the first protozoa decided to split. If you dont, you're not an artist, you're an entertainer. Nothing wrong about that for those who cant do more, Those who can gotta wear the yoke and i'm the guy makes sure it stays on. 

Last time i saw the artist in question, she had teased her massive red hair into a jewfro and was wearing spiked heels (which NOone, esp hippie chicks, did then) which brought the top of her to about six and a half feet off the ground and was goofin onstage with weirdass tunings, loops & phase shifters cuz, well, that's what racehorses do without jockeys. Within a couple of years she'd married a pigfarmer from Michigan or sumn and quit the biz. Plays folk festivals some now, hasnt tried in decades. My fault, crying while i type this 40 years on. nufced -

ETA:  recent  examples of the talent i let go untended

 

[rockaction]

I'm going to break a rule for you, sorta name a name i'm legally not supposed to name, which i've avoided doing in my 10 years on this board, many tho the times i've wanted to. That's how important my point.

When i was in the music business, i heard one of my company's clients, a large, weird looking gal with immense talent, just exploding with expressive volatility. Turns out she had jammed regularly with Hendrix @ after-hours clubs in the Village during the 60s, after which he was often heard to complain "cant stay widdat #####". The last word's the key, tho - sweet, funny gal who would not let King nor fool #### with one thread of her sound, her approach. It was fair, tho - a woman in those days couldnt do anything special without men jumpin all over her saying how it could be better. Wrote half a play on the subject, matter of fact, using how Byron & Percy jumped all over Mary Shelley's writing of Frankenstein to make the point.

Cozied up to her, got to know her, made her laugh. She was such a King ##### and that werent gonna change but i knew she and the world were gonna be damned by that. Wanted the comfort of my gig, but needed to apply my talentless ### to gettin this gal to everybody cuz the world had to hear her and that required getting to her and that meant getting her away from the the folks who were running her (or paying her to run herself.....into the ground). Got caught, got sued out of the business, cost myself millions of dollars cuz almost the entire music biz had already said yes to me and i was barely 20 yrs old, i was gonna be David Geffen without the taste for ####.

Didn't matter, this'all had to get to everybody, I was riding that range horse to the Derby, and i'd do exactly the same thing again. Art obliges us even in the presenting/packaging end to take it thru and past every frontier it can be brought. That's been the obligation, the dictate of life since the first protozoa decided to split. If you dont, you're not an artist, you're an entertainer. Nothing wrong about that for those who cant do more, Those who cant gotta wear the yoke and i'm the guy makes sure it stays on. 

Last time i saw the artist in question, she had teased her massive red hair into a jewfro and was wearing spiked heels (which NOone, esp hippie chicks, did then) which brought the top of her to about six and a half feet off the ground and was goofin onstage with weirdass tunings, loops & phase shifters cuz, well, that's what racehorses do without jockeys. Within a couple of years she'd married a pigfarmer from Michigan or sumn and quit the biz. Plays folk festivals some now, hasnt tried in decades. My fault, crying while i type this 40 years on. nufced -

ETA:  recent  examples of the talent i let go untended

She is simply astounding. You didn't let it go untended. What could you have done?  

 

[wikkidpissah]

She is simply astounding. You didn't let it go untended. What could you have done?  

Well, i've spent over 40 years chewing that over with my daily cud, havent i?!

But i knew the core of it back then - showing her the obligation to the women of the world (she had an international upbringing, was a language prodigy) her talent implied. Found her songwriting partners til she got off her reluctance (her taste in covers was so immaculate i knew she'd get it eventually if she let mentors in) and frustration with it; put her persona across without too much editing, cut the brush from her path. I was still on my way in when i was stopped, but i never had a doubt i could do it. She was my Laura Nyro....

 

[peaces]

My whole existence is flawed.