In Which Doctor Casino Listens to Classic Rock Classics for the First Time

you will need to set aside 7 minutes to begin the next installment of our listening experiment. #2 on ilm's bruce springsteen poll. one of america's most beloved rock and roller's most beloved epics. i know a pretty little place in southern california, down san diego way, that would be a good place to listen to this one.

SONG #3: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN "ROSALITA"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC4bf67s5lQ

YES

fyi getting off lightly with a mere 7 min, live versions go 20+ min

My hometown classic rock station barely played Springsteen for some reason--only Born to Run, as far as I can remember, so I never heard this or any of his other 70s/early 80s stuff until I actively pursued it.

I very very faintly remember from my childhood where people actually sing (rather dolefully) '''Ca-sey Jooones'' for the refrain. I now suspect this probably came from a cartoon adaptation of the actual Casey Jones tale.

This?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbTBk4pDIHA

whoa guys, I just listened to Focus - Hocus Pocus for what is absolutely the first and hopefully the last time. I think you all owe it to yourselves to check it out asap.

it's bitchin

If you don't like 'Hocus Pocus' you are no friend of mine.

Tbh, I only really heard it on the radio when CHEZ was still a 'progressive album-oriented' station. It sounded kind of otherworldly when I was a kid though.

Wasn't familiar with "Hocus Pocus" by title alone, read the description on wikipedia and realized I am deeply familiar with that song.

i had no idea he was saying do it lonnie do it in roadhouse blues until, like, last year. always assumed he was saying robbie.

course i had no idea that lonnie played the solo until recently. that was the problem.

love, the guy who didn't know that brown sugar was about slavery until last year cuz he had never read the lyrics

i also totally missed somehow that rosa was the young bank robber in the flashbacks and i honestly thought that old dying rosa was an old russian woman and thus was completely mystified when old rosa turned into young rosa at the end there. i did wonder why they were driving such old cars in the flashback...

feel really dumb about that. to be fair i am always really stoned when i watch that show at night.

course i had no idea that lonnie played the solo until recently. that was the problem.

wait, and that's john sebastian on harmonica??? i had no idea about that until 22 seconds ago!

xpost deep backstory on that Springsteen song

ha I thought she was Russian too

I'm really surprised Phish has never done a cover of Hocus Pocus.

a group of teachers at my high school did an air guitar performance of Hocus Pocus at an assembly

If you've only heard "Hocus Pocus," and never seen Hocus Pocus, watch the clip below to see the singer wild the fuck out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDW9b_ejfI

Also, I can't figure out the dude's hair. Is he rocking the never-before-seen long hair/mutton chops combo?

Hocus Pocus was used pretty prominently in Nike's 2010 (very excellent) world cup ad

MarkoP - hrm, nope, that's not it - this was something more in a minor key, with grim determination perhaps, but uptempo, train-tempo.

Sorry for the delay, ya'll - got my turntable hooked up again, spent some time yesterday cruising the cheapie bins and have been putting my listening time into Hard Promises - which ain't half bad.

All right now, we're down here at the Lake Lanier Islands Beach & Water Park, it's a beautiful day and we're having a great time courtesy of Holiday Marina and Gwinnett County Honda - we'll be hear all day and into the night so you should come down and join us! Adam Bruneau will be stopping by later to tell you how you can win tickets to see the Sanford-Townsend Band at the Roxy next week, if you call in with a certain plot detail from this song...

Rosalita: Well, from the first bars I'm liking this way more than the Springsteen I've heard - it's overstuffed in the way I associate with his big hits, but it feels joyous, this kind of tringley-dingley "future college rock" stuff is one of my favorite kind of guitar sounds, and even the organ blanket can't smother that. So is this basically the earlier, not-as-exhaustingly-in-your-face version of "Born to Run"?

Love the pretty, fast/high playing around 3:30, another great sound. And the back-and-forth between the players after that is really satisfying, feels 'live' and organic even on this paltry 7-minute studio version. Maybe it's just Bruce's blowsy grunting, wheezing and yawlping that crowds up the mix elsewhere and makes it feel sloppy and Blues Traveler-y. Another great part is the hand-clap and singalong bit around 5:00, for the same reason - things clean out a bit to where you can enjoy hearing each detail even as the pace drives you past so fast you can't catch it all and want to hear the song again. Hahaha, the 6:30 part with the hup-ho-hup-ho, that put a grin on my face. The ending less so - kinda classic "we've got too much going on here for it to really 'end,' so just crash-land with gusto" kinda thing.

Good, uptempo rock band telling-a-tale stuff, this! Didn't catch a whit of the story, I guess people are going places, listening to bands, holding on tight to each other, that kinda thing - presumably if I knew this well, certain moments would be the big epic triumphant deliveries that people love to reach in karaoke. I still think it's a little too busy...I'd love to hear it covered by, like, a three-piece band. I realize this sort of goes against the grain of Springsteenism, and the joy of a bunch of dudes playing off each other that I did appreciate above, but there are ways in which this slips over the line into Phishy jam-band-ism, and that point I want it to get pared back and cleaned up by some slick Phil Ramone type. "If Billy Joel had written and recorded 'Rosalita' instead of Bruce Springsteen..." - though obviously this kind of thing is what Joel's own 'epics' were trying to do. (I love those, but they're a different animal, presumably derailed by his desire to show off his piano playing and melodicism, McCartney-esque 'medley' composition, etc.) The real peer group I guess is the Rolling Thunder Revue, et al - and I'd also be interested in hearing Bob and company cover this, though I suspect they'd lose the pretty bits I liked so much. Thumbs up, will add to my early-70s "Woolly" CR playlist.

another tremendous, insightful review, dc. i've never heard the term "tringley-dingley," but that is my new favorite guitar adjective. it totally makes sense.

this is definitely the early, exuberant springsteen, the last gasp of the much beloved but short-lived band that featured "mad dog" vini lopez on drums and david sancious on piano. not long after, sancious quit and lopez was sacked, and the modern e street band was more or less solidified on the next album, born to run, two years later. and then the workingman's hero version of springsteen was more or less born three years after that, on darkness on the edge of town. in many ways, the entirety of bruce springsteen is contained in those two albums and in the wild, the innocent and the e street shuffle, from which came "rosalita," and those five years are probably what most fans think of as his peak. as springsteen goes, the earlier the sloppier/wilder/funner, which in a way might also translate to phishier/blues travelerier, i can sort of sea that, yeah. but also, definitely, yes, rolling bob dylan.

presumably if I knew this well, certain moments would be the big epic triumphant deliveries that people love to reach in karaoke.

the two big such moments for me have always been"
--the big saxophone entry at 3:42 (which, during karaoke, would translate to air sax, obviously)
--"the record company, rosie, just gave me a big advance!"

my other favorite vocal moment is how "the cats," in the line "trying out his attitude on all the cats," at 1:21, sounds like it was overdubbed by springsteen at a different point in his life.

"If Billy Joel had written and recorded 'Rosalita' instead of Bruce Springsteen..."

my mind blown. (billy actually wrote two songs with "rosalinda" in the title, but no rosalitas.)

also, dc, you never ever need to apologize for listening to tom petty.

idk that those 5 years are considered "the peak" but you're on a roll & they're great albums so w/e

sax break on rosie is all-time pure moment of joyfulness for me

wait nvm i misread that so ignore me

except re: sax

Key thread BTW: T or F: If Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had written and recorded "You May Be Right" instead of Billy Joel, it would have been among their best songs and greatest achievements

Kinda down for listening to Rosalita again today to hear those tringles, maybe I'll start to mark out the story a bit more.

spoiler alert: her papa knows that Bruce does not have any money.

A nice dovetail to Rosalita is "Sherry Darling" same college rock thing imo

I love DYNAMITE'S IN THE BELFRY BABY, kinda kicks the song into the next gear

(xp) spoiler alert 2: her papa is unaware of some recent happenings at bruce's record company.

A nice dovetail to Rosalita is "Sherry Darling" same college rock thing imo

truth. there's college-rock guitar all over the river actually.

wow that tom petty "you may be right" thread.

I still wanna hear "Hotel California" a la Television...

http://youtu.be/073hvnT6zQY

one of my favorite live versions, he has such a blast on stage it adds the magic flavor that the recorded version misses

reading the lyrics to songs is for effete snobs. the real salt-of-the-earth thing is to read the liner notes. (bands who put their lyrics in the liner notes are also effete snobs.)

There was a great version from Phoenix '78 that MTV would sometimes play, before Bruce had any actual videos out.

xp

also max on drums & professor on piano pushes it up where it needs to be

no less love for their predecessors but it's just a brighter, snappier vibe with weinberg & bittan

one of my favorite live versions

bruce and clarence circa 5:35 in that clip. tears streaming down my face.

Of all of these the one that surprises me the most that DC has never heard is "Outfield – Your Love". It feels to me like one of the top 10 songs to reference the 80's.

I'm actually deeply interested in hearing his opinion on that one if he has actually never heard it. I've heard so many times over the years that I've grown fond of it and it still doesn't feel tiresome.

"Your Love" is one of the best

the bass is really quietly mixed! I'd never really noticed till now.

the outfield will be a good one! but we've had a lot of requests for this next one, so after a commercial break, we'll be back with one of three songs from the netherlands on our unheard classic rock classics playlist. stay tuned for...

SONG #4: FOCUS "HOCUS POCUS"

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

*yodels*

I don't think this song gets played on CRR here

yeah in my ATL days I never heard that song

I heard it a few times on CR when I lived in Florida.

since this will be our first european song, here's a thing about doctor casino's list that i thought was worth sharing:

the original classic rock playlist proposed by some dude on the big classic rock thread had 545 songs, and their continent of origin breaks down this way:

north america: 57 percent
europe: 38 percent
australia 2 percent
hybridistan*: 3 percent

(hybridistan is the north american/european crossover nation state from which comes fleetwood mac and foreigner)

doctor casino is unfamiliar with 92 songs on that master list, and his 92 break down this way:

north america: 76 percent
europe 17 percent
australia: 4 percent
hybridistan: 2 percent

in other words, doctor casino's life experience has made him reasonably familiar with classic rock songs from england and elsewhere in europe, while leaving him with a blind spot toward classic rock from the u.s. and canada. at least compared to some dude's life experience, that is. which i assume says something about how music from the two continents is prized differently by the curators of rock and roll in different parts of the u.s. or maybe our sample size is a bit too small. but this stuff fascinates me.

(and yes, i, like styx, had too much time on my hands yesterday.)

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