Musical Obsessions

I think movies, politics, and religion get covered quite heavily in here, but there isn't a place to really talk in depth about music. Sure there is the classic rock page, but music is so much more vast than that. And last song listened to doesn't really cover the whole of music.

Tell me what band you've been digging lately, or what album you cannot resist playing several times over. Use the last movie seen format if you want, and review an album, or even a concert if you had the pleasure of going to such a thing. Any genre welcome, even if the piece is ancient.

And if you want to, tell me about something you listened to that you didn't like. As long as you listened to it. It could be from a band you used to like, or a band you never liked. It can be a single song, album, or their entire discography if you see fit.

Stevie Ray Vaughan. My dad used to talk about his music, and one day he put some headphones over my ears and played the track scuttle buttin'. I have been in love with that man's guitar work ever since. Listening to those records, and trying to keep up with him made me a much better player, though I still don't think I'm quite as good as that man. He was on another level. He was like a mixture of BB King and Eddie Van Halen. He had the lightning and the feeling.

I was on a big Collective Soul kick back in high school. They were definitely one the last great radio rock bands I can think of. They had a concert on TV a few years back, and I watched the whole thing, and enjoyed it quite a bit. "December" is the song that brought them to my attention. Most people usually cite "Shine". I can't count the number of times I've picked up the guitar and played "Where The River Flows" Definitely one of the bands that don't seem to get that much love, yet they have a lot of songs that people know. You still hear them on the radio, but nobody walks around with Collective Soul shirts.

Asteroids Galaxy Tour

Been listening to this Danish pop band since their first album, and I have to say I am definitely a big fan. I'm not big on pop, but they know how to make a damn pop record. It sounds like ABBA, Pink Floyd, War, Parliament, and Kool & The Gang were melted together. A very strong retro vibe going on. Like 60's - 80's kind of stuff, but with an electric touch. There's even some jazz thrown in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCUzwszWBQ

Not every song they do is great, mind you. But the songs that are great, are pretty good. I've been sort of expecting them to explode, but they still haven't really, and they've been doing some big gigs in the states.

The singer's voice is quite different. I think she sounds good on a lot of the songs, but some of the songs probably would've been better without the vocals. I understand, it's kind of hard to come up with a good vocal melody over a piece that is already musically complete. Hence, why Billy Joel doesn't really write anymore.

My favourite music is hard bop and cool jazz, especially stuff from 50's and 60's. My favourite musician from those genres is Miles Davis.

imperialscum said:

My favourite music is hard bop and cool jazz

Also two of my favourite porno magazines!

This past week I've getting in deep to Teenage Fanclub's 1991 LP 'Bandwagonesque'. I could never get into it before somehow??? despite it sitting on my shelf for a good decade but this week I hit that magic point where it all clicks and you can't stop listening to a record. I could listen to the bass guitar line on track 3 forever...

Teenage Fanclub - December

Like glorious Beach Boys meets Grunge. Blissed out melodies and squealing guitars.

imperialscum said:

My favourite music is hard bop and cool jazz, especially stuff from 50's and 60's. My favourite musician from those genres is Miles Davis.

 Stop imposing your musical taste on others. That's brainwashing. Also, I disagree.

Frank your Majesty said:

imperialscum said:

My favourite music is hard bop and cool jazz, especially stuff from 50's and 60's. My favourite musician from those genres is Miles Davis.

 Stop imposing your musical taste on others. That's brainwashing. Also, I disagree.

 I have license for that!

darth_ender said:

If there is a God, He must be you.

Yeah what Stevie did wasn't terribly complicated, but he did such a good job at it, that it looks and sounds insane. The guy had hands that could crush skulls. He used suspension cables as strings, and bent the living crap out of them. I don't think there is a better blues tone, maybe 70's Ry Cooder, but still Stevie had so much more going on.

I can play along to him, but I need to take a breather after a little bit. He'd put on concerts that would last for hours, and he'd still be tearing the guitar up.

Anytime somebody tries to compare him to Hendrix, I want to sock them in the face. I tell them, you play the guitar for several years, and you'll see a huge difference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWLw7nozO_U

Stevie Ray Vaughan's albums up until In Step were essentially just live albums without an audience. No studio trickery, what you got on record, is what you got live. Hendrix didn't sound remotely similar to the studio recordings when he played live.

There's an even bigger problem where I'm at. Bands only seem to be looking for drummers and singers. They usually already have guitarists. It's like trying to find a girl at a sausage fest. It doesn't matter how good you are either, bands don't seem to care.

Down here in Houston everybody is wanting to play Red Dirt country, which is essentially a twangier version of that crappy pop country that's played on the radio. I can play country all day long if it's the old 50's - 70's country,

It's a lot of really bad cover bands wanting to relive the 80's, and that's just not my thing. Sure, I've spent a lot of time trying to sound like the guitarist that I'm covering, but that was only to increase my pallet of sounds.

Because my music tastes are so broad, I have developed an odd style that doesn't belong to a single genre, and I think it would be a crime to waste that in a cover band.

I'm not against playing other people's songs, but most cover bands just play what was top 40, years ago. I'm a b-sides man, with a love of folk songs, jazz standards, blues standards, country standards, and anything else that excites me musically. I don't feel that I am a good songwriter, which seems to be all an artist is judged on these days, but I come up with some interesting melodies and different ideas. I think it is sad that musicians have to be songwriters anymore. Sinatra, Elvis, Crosby, and many others didn't write their own music, but they were highly respected.

It seems like after Bob Dylan, everybody had to be a songwriter.

EyeShotFirst said:

I'm not against playing other people's songs, but most cover bands just play what was top 40, years ago. I'm a b-sides man, with a love of folk songs, jazz standards, blues standards, country standards, and anything else that excites me musically. I don't feel that I am a good songwriter, which seems to be all an artist is judged on these days, but I come up with some interesting melodies and different ideas. I think it is sad that musicians have to be songwriters anymore. Sinatra, Elvis, Crosby, and many others didn't write their own music, but they were highly respected.

It seems like after Bob Dylan, everybody had to be a songwriter.

That's one reason I loved The White Stripes, a third of their sets were usually covers (And different covers every night). It was a great way to go off exploring their influences. Jack White's cover of Arthur Lee's 'Five String Serenade' at the Brixton Academy, 12th April 2003 was one the greatest moments of my life... I'm still hoping a fan recording will surface one day but perhaps it's best as a perfect memory.

That same night they also played songs by Dolly Parton, Blind Willie McTell (Two songs), Brendan Benson, Screaming Lord Sutch, Son House, Blind Willie Johnson, Cab Calloway, Burt Bacharach, Public Nuisance and Lead Belly. I would love it if more bands did this.

Devo are my favorite band of all time, and have been for some time.

"Wait, the guys who played 'Whip It'?"

Let me explain.

Devo were a group of punk weirdos ahead of their time. The seeds were planted on May 4th, 1970, when they were students at Kent State University and witnessed the shooting first-hand. It permanently warped their worldview. In their opinion, humanity wasn't moving forward, but backward: not evolution, but DE-VOlution. Far away from the "cultural centers" of the punk and new wave movements in New York and California, they stewed in their own juices for nearly a decade in the suburbs of Akron, Ohio, before their demo tape was discovered by Iggy Pop and David Bowie. Bowie called them "the band of the future". Iggy said he "felt like Christopher Columbus". Their first album was unleashed on the world in August 1978.

And it FUCKING. RULED.


"Uncontrollable Urge", the opening track off their first album.

Their albums increasingly became more synth-heavy, more pop-oriented, still subversive and weird but less openly confrontational. They've been going through a bit of a resurgence lately after re-issuing a collection of basement demos from before they got a record deal, which display just what a pissed off proto-punk group they really were:

"Fountain of Filth", from Hardcore Devo Vol. 2

Unique, twisted, original. ARE WE NOT MEN? WE ARE DEVO!

"Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA" Live, my favorite performance of my favorite Devo song

EyeShotFirst said:

Yeah what Stevie did wasn't terribly complicated, but he did such a good job at it, that it looks and sounds insane. The guy had hands that could crush skulls. He used suspension cables as strings, and bent the living crap out of them. I don't think there is a better blues tone, maybe 70's Ry Cooder, but still Stevie had so much more going on.

Brian Setzer said:

First of all, Stevie Ray was magic. It's funny because people always want to know about his guitars and his amps but what I want to tell you is that it was in his fingers. It had nothing to do with his guitar and amp. I think he could have been playing a Silvertone guitar through a transistor radio. That night at "Mud Island" in Memphis I was watching him from the side and he called me up onstage. He handed me his guitar and he said, "Play!". I didn't know what to expect. I thought it would be really loud and just, you know, all over the stage. It wasn't though, it was about as loud as I set my guitars. It even kind of sounded like mine. I was so surprised. He stood there in front of the pedal board with his arms crossed just hitting different pedals. At that moment I realized...jeez, it's all about what's in this guy's fingers. What can I say? He was one of the truly great guitar players. We never played together at the same time, but I'll never forget that night.

Nanner Split said:

Devo are my favorite band of all time, and have been for some time... Their first album was unleashed on the world in August 1978.

And it FUCKING. RULED.

Indeed. Loved the Rolling Stones cover off that record. Although I prefer Talking Heads, if I had to chose just one Post-Punk-Funk group.

Really like that demo you linked to. Sounds like Devo playing The Undertones, or vice versa.

That's cool to hear that from Brian Setzer. I definitely agree about it being in his hands, because Stevie played several different guitars and it always sounded like him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYSoJmSMctU

I have many guitars and amps, and I pretty much manage to sound the same on all of them. The color might be slightly different. There might be some different effects and eq settings, but I still do the same things. The action of the strings and the response I get out of the guitar might change my approach to certain notes, but it's still me.

For no special reason... a couple of my favourite ever music photographs...

(Iggy and the Stooges: 1970 - Cincinnati Pop Festival, June 23, 1970) What you'd give to be the guy who snapped that, shame the video quality of that same performance is rubbish.

(Gram Parsons, Altamont Speedway 6 December 1969) He just looks totally lost in the music.

Possessed said:

EyeShotFirst said:

Because my music tastes are so broad, I have developed an odd style that doesn't belong to a single genre, and I think it would be a crime to waste that in a cover band.

 The same could be said about me.  I primarily play metal, but with the attitude and fury of Stevie Ray Vaughan (he may have been blues, but he plays with more fury than metal.  Metal's fury comes from primarily the thick instrumentation and the momentum of the songwriting, but I would say alot of metal bands actually play their instruments pretty tamely.  Fast, but soft.  I play metal riffs like SRV played blues riffs... played hard and floored. )  Also I solo quite alot like Stevie Ray Vaughan mixed with some more melodic classical shredding and occasionally the random-ish outbursts of furious notes of Slayer's Kerry King, all infused in to one.  Suffice it to say I'm all over the place.  I can actually carry a song too, which is a trait most local guitarists here seem to lack.  Most of them only learn "tricks" or gimmicks, but when they play riffs or songs they just sound horrible.

Uuuh high and mighty, are we? And I was led to believe I was being the only one around here.

Nanner Split said:

Devo are my favorite band of all time, and have been for some time.

Their first album was unleashed on the world in August 1978.

And it FUCKING. RULED.

 Nice write up Nanner! I'm a Devo obsesso myself.

Music is my main obsession in life. I don't have time right now to gush about all the bands and artists I love, but here's a quick list of daily obsessions...

The Smiths
White Zombie
Ramones
the Cramps
Devo
Pixies
the Hives
Misfits

Though that list of bands may not reflect it, I mostly listen to old rockabilly from the 50's-60's.

This thread reminds me: I really need to finish listening to Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Or, perhaps, begin listening to Parsifal.... or even Lohengrin.

Ryan McAvoy said:

Although I prefer Talking Heads, if I had to chose just one Post-Punk-Funk group.

I really like Talking Heads. Great music.

ATMachine said:

This thread reminds me: I really need to finish listening to Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Or, perhaps, begin listening to Parsifal.... or even Lohengrin.

 Not easily done. I have Solti's Ring Cycle from the 60's, and it's amazing, but I think I'd probably be more apt to finish the set if I watched the operas.