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

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.)

clap clap

The song on that list that surprises me the most is Nazareth's Love Hurts.

omg, awesome stats, love that.

This is a little tricky though because all it really takes is a few big British bands where I *do* know almost all the songs, and whammo. Another problem would be that I could have gotten to know the songs in a way other than via CR radio, for example by that convertible that pulled away from our high school parking lot one day, leaving the loose discs of Led Zeppelin Boxed Set 2 bouncing around in the dust and gravel at my feet. Presumably at least some of this is interrelated - I (and perhaps the convertible drivers) was primed to be interested in the box set based on CR radio, perhaps....

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.

Yeah, if you really wanted to do this, you'd probably have to actually compare station playlists.

Growing up on Led Zep, Sabbath, Beatles, and never abandoned it, I like to think I'm pretty well versed in this scene, and I have never ever heard that Focus song. Listening to it now though and it's pretty rad. I'm American btw

I think that Focus song is something probably most often used as a tag in commercials or station ID bumpers more than actually played.

Holy crap the whistling at ~3:40 in that live video is incredible

Hocus Pocus, by Focus (from their hit album Crocus?):

First couple seconds, I'm sold - rock on, dudes! No blowsy New Jerseyites cluttering things up here, just riff on, riff on, keep riffin' on, do some more riffin' on.

OMG the yodeling

yessssssssssssssssssssssss

this rules

hahahahahaha

Wow. You can kinda see why this didn't exactly fly in the South, we like our yodeling to come from actual backwoods mountain men and/or passable facsimiles thereof - not from effete Europeans who learned it secondhand from Slim Whitman. I'm starting to get off the boat with the tickety-tackety Popeye-chuckle faux-scatting, as much as it brilliantly sets up the return of the PUMMELING WALL OF RIFFING. The drum solos are all a little less convincing tbh, dude's kinda just filling time there. At 3:30 I'm now kinda over this alternation between yodel and guitar attack, though the guitar attacks keep getting more and more satisfying. Thank god, they changed it up with this flute thing - I like that it sounds like you can hear them desperately gasping for air in between notes.

oh ffs, gtfo with this accordion thing, this is just goofy now

oh wait BRANNA DANNA DOW BRANNA DANNA DOW, DUNG DING, BRUNG, BRUN BRANG, okay, now just - -

- - - fire the drummer oh god, this guy - dude, your band's name is called focus, try it sometime.

I wonder how many people bought this/requested it just to LOL at the yodeling, but secretly loved it? The rockin' is so good (drums aside) that they really don't need the gimmick. Did they yodel on all their songs? Did they ever have words?

Overall, thumbs up, throwing this on my playlist though I have a strong suspicion I'll often end up skipping it because I'm just not in the mood for a yodel. Holy shit, though, really glad I heard that, feels like a major missing piece of the picture.

Slim Whitman was a god.

http://img2-2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/Head-Explosion/mars-attacks_300.jpg

blowing my mind here

j/k, you get no argument from me, he is ace for "rose-marie" alone, though one of those cursed artists where no dollar comp you pick up is actually the hit versions of anything.

I've never heard Hocus Pocus before! It's fucking incredible.

irl lol throughout your review DC. God bless this thread.

"Cattle Call" is cowboy shoegaze.

Maybe not shoegaze but definitely some instant dream transportation going on during the verses and that sick butter-slick lapsteel solo.

"Hocus Pocus" seems a bit like a youtube viral hit, it's all about the unexpected jump cut to someone's really well-done silliness.

OTM, could easily have done a "Harlem Shake" deal with this, maybe cross-wired with Hamster Dance.

Yodeling was invented in Europe, dudes. Bloody Americans.

I was being just a little bit ironical...

And I wasn't actually annoyed. Humour really doesn't travel well on the internet.

A testament to the strength of rockin' yodel instrumentals, to speak without words on both sides of the Atlantic.

^__^

"Hocus Pocus" is amazingly crude for a prog classic.

otm. imo The drumming in the live clip almost had a proto-hardcore feeling to it

something about it feels like it should have run in the credits for a show like Catweazle or something...it's just so strange & awesome

never heard it before, but Hocus Pocus not really changing my mind about majority of this list being garbage. eurololz tho.

"hocus pocus" was one of the least surprising entries, to me, on dc's list. i heard it on occasion growing up without ever knowing what it was or who it was -- it was just that weird instrumental with the yodeling in it -- but i'm pretty sure i hadn't heard it in many years before this thread. otm about its youtube viral potential, though.

also, a shame that krokus never covered it.

correction: i said yesterday that "hocus pocus" was one of three dutch songs on our unheard classic rock playlist. in fact, it's the only one. all of us here at WUCR apologize for the error.

next up, the first of four songs from the great classic rock city of boston, straight outta the berklee school of music.

SONG #5: BILLY SQUIER "EVERYBODY WANTS YOU"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9mQVKsMcLk

Ha, I didn't know Squier went to Berklee. I'm curious how many artists from the big list went to (post-secondary) music school. Styx and Steely Dan are the only ones that come to mind offhand.

"The Stroke" is the high water mark of the Schillinger system iirc

lol

"Everybody Wants You" is sick! Really well mixed too.

I'm glad it's Everybody Wants You & not STROKE STROKE STROKE

Hate this song so much. It was a constant on Chicago radio when it was new, and it only hit #32! It wasn't a big enough hit to warrant the rotation it got!