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

^^Don't rule that out for the next Crazy Horse album.

"5 Day Pass"

"I used to dig Jack Kirby...hey now hey now now"

Beyonderfinger

"It's better to flame on
Than to fade away"

Hmm, maybe at the end of the some dude countdown we should update here with anything I don't know that placed in the results, even if it wasn't in the original tailgate list? I figure if they're big enough to show up in the poll results they're big enough that I "should" know them. So far (as of #61), it'd be "Walk Away," and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," plus "Midnight Rider" which I must have passed over when I made my list.

Nils is a man of many talents:

you ain't seen nothin til you've seen him do interpretive jazz dancing on the Trans tour

(xp) yes, totally. those three are now on the master list, and happy to add more. (but you're from atlanta, right? kinda surprised about the allmans!)

I'm calling he's heard it but always thought it was called "one more silver dollar"

It is possible! But at the moment, I'm drawing a blank, silver dollars or no. TBH it's also possible there are even more embarrassing omissions that I never put down in writing... might have self-censored a bit when I was making my list to avoid seeming too pathetic to the cool kids of ILM.

when did we start letting in cool kids?

welcome back, my friends, to the thread that never ends.

SONG #24: EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER "KARN EVIL 9 (1st IMPRESSION, PT. 2)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwSTe9uit48

"karn evil 9 (1st impression, pt. 2)" is the radio-friendly piece of elp's four-part, half-hour long "karn evil" suite. it was originally released on the album brain salad surgery, with the four parts spread across one and a half album sides in such a way that "1st impression, pt. 2" conveniently wound up as the lead track on side 2. it did not place in the top 500 on ilm's classic rock poll. brain salad surgery took its title from a lyric in dr. john's "right place wrong time," which was released earlier the same year, and which came in at #487 in ilm.

Oh man, looking forward to this one! Have always been curious about their awesome album art and intimidated by their awful song and album titles, plus the general sense that I was in for some overpreening ''I know music theory'' guitar dude bullshit. But after being pleasantly surprised by Yes, I'm hoping to discover a new fave here too. Coming soon.

plus the general sense that I was in for some overpreening ''I know music theory'' guitar dude bullshit.

Fortunately, you're safe here.

ELP is overpreening "I know music theory" keyboard dude bullshit.

Karn Evil 9 (1st Blood, Pt. 2): Cool disco opening, hey, the rave is starting. Welcome to the karnival! Haha and the organs are also kinda ravey. "Guaranteed to blow your head apart" is a sweet line. Aww man, though, now that it's hitting the groove it's a little doughier than I was hoping for - maybe we're still building up. Wait, he's just repeating everything? Okay, this part with the other synth (1:14) is a little cooler. I kinda just want the more Moroder-y guy to get to take over though, the main organ guy is...sheesh, this is kinda wanky. Wow. Keyboard orchestra. I always wanted to organize an all-Yamaha orchestra kinda band in a kinda twee basement pop sense, shitty keyboards as the new folk instrument but this is obviously not what we're up against here.

I'm glad the guitar solo - theme tune for a heroic adventurer in act one - came in to shove the keys out of the way and follow something kinda like a melody for a minute. So this is what became of all the guys who bought Hammond organs in the late 60s to play in big psychedelic rock bands? This also does make Attila make a little more sense as part of some larger context.

Part around 3:00 is really cool, I love this whenever the little zippy synth gets to really be zippy and other things get to whoosh around - when it's just the main corny organ guy banging away it gives me a headache. The COME AND SEE THE SHOW! is also kind a bit much but I do like what it does rhythmically.

Okay, there's lil' Zipper again - - -oh no wait it's back to POUND POUND Emphasis Guy. See the show, lasers taking off...and it's over.

Yeah, um, hrm. Is this a staple on radios somewhere? Is the whole record like this, or are they pouring on the "freak-out" for the opening track, raising the curtain, Welcome to my spooooooky carnival! Hope I don't... blow your mind! Bwahahah! I could kinda accept that (though it's cheesy), but as a song in itself, it's kinda exhausting. I'm not sure I can muster my customary second listen (update: I did anyway). Reading back over my remarks, though, I'd already forgotten the cool opening, which promises something way sleeker, more futuristic and, well, danceable than we get. I kinda just want that opening swirl to stick around a little longer, maybe with some punchy drumming going - this maybe ties back to the conversations about Rush and for that matter Eminence Front.... I mean there's all the materials here for a groovy rhythm or even an awesome stadium anthem. I guess that's not what they were going for, but fuck it, it's what I'd like to hear. Has this ever been sampled/remixed?

Is this a staple on radios somewhere?

I've heard it on CR a few times. Oddly, I was hearing a lot of ELP when I was driving through the Upper Midwest/Plains.

yeah I only know this from FM radio

yeah that song is def a classic rock radio staple. #381 most played song in 2011.

"Lucky Man" and "From the Beginning" are probably the most-played ELP songs? (xpost Some dude can correct me.) They're pretty different, folky ballads written by Greg Lake. Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas" (which is awesome) gets regular play around Christmas around here but people tell me that this doesn't happen in the US or UK.

"Karn Evil" is the only one on said chart. definitely the only one i can remember hearing regularly.

Where is the chart that you use?

someone who had access to airplay data threw me some files a few years ago

"Still...You Turn Me On" gets deep cut play as well.

I hear this "Karn Evil 9" thing lots on the radio. Honestly, I can think of few bands as internally divisive as ELP, whom I have never really listened to or liked but only hate off and on, albeit in the same listen. It's like every other minute I want to hear more, then less, then I like it, then I never want to hear it again, etc. I like prog, but I've never so much as downloaded an ELP track.

ELP are pretty great from the debut up through the triple(!) live album. I wrote about their catalog when it was reissued in 2008.

I like Josh in Chicago's description, good to know I'm not the only one. Oddly, now that I've been away from "Karn Evil 9" for a few hours I'm kinda game to give it another spin. There were all these flashes of interest.

This also does make Attila make a little more sense as part of some larger context.

wow, i love that you made that connection. that does make a lot of sense, though it's perhaps worth noting that attila's only album came out three years before this, and elp's first album (brain salad surgery was their fourth) came out shortly after the attila album. attila are no doubt more formalist, channeling their organ psychedelia through classical ambitions on one hand and folky ambitions on the other. or something like that.

Yeah, um, hrm. Is this a staple on radios somewhere? Is the whole record like this, or are they pouring on the "freak-out" for the opening track

my memory of brain salad surgery -- owned in my house by my older brother -- is that the full "karn evil" suite was a very long freak-out, in sections, while the rest of the album veered between classical freak-out ("toccata") and folk freak-out ("still you turn me on"), with a fold-out h.r. giger freak-out for an album cover. this is neither recommendation nor criticism; just me trying to re-create a childhood memory, really.

Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas" (which is awesome)

one of my favorite christmas songs when i was growing up!

attila are no doubt more formalist[

ugh, something got cut there. should say "attila are no doubt more primal and elp more formalist, channeling their organ psychedelia through..."

haha there is no ILX rock thread that I cannot, some day, steer towards Attila. Holy Moses! It's not that it's such a good record, it's just that it has such an oddball sound, but it's great to start drawing a more complete map for myself of late 60s/early 70s rock band ambitions and sonic moves, to where I can sorta see where someone would arrive at that and go "Oh, yeah, this is going to be huge."

ELP's covers seem great to me. The name is awful though - were these guys remotely known by their last names before this? Was it supposed to convey "these titans have teamed up at last," or more "we're artists, above the silly names of other 'bands'; let us be named in the way of such great composers as Rodgers and Hammerstein"...?

all three for sure

Emerson had been a leading member of the Nice and Lake had been the frontman for King Crimson. Not sure if that made them titans. I never really thought about the band name, though; I guess it never struck me as a pretentious move for a band to just go by their actual names.

and presumably "keith, greg and carl" would have sounded way too poppy, a la peter, paul & mary or dino, desi & billy. first names connote slumber parties, first crushes and 45-rpm singles. last names connote gravity, grown-ups and albums.

speaking of last names...

the allman brothers never released "midnight rider" as a single, but gregg allman did three years later, and his version went to #19 on the u.s. pop chart. but the band had the last laugh. the allmans' original became a rock staple and -- more important -- landed #76 on the ilm classic rock poll.

SONG #25: THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND "MIDNIGHT RIDER"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBf48xUIBLo

i'm trying, and failing, to think of another song that was originally recorded by a band but became a bigger hit when a member of the band put it on his solo album -- without leaving the band. i can think of plenty of examples of solo artists having hits with songs by their former bands, but not any other examples of solo artists having hits with songs by their current bands.

Congratulations on getting the Karnival pun. That didn't hit me until about three years into my radio career.

Our talk rival across town was KARN, so I was always heh, heh, they are evil aren't they, amirite?

Joe Walsh's "In the City" almost qualifies.

xp

xpost Your Voice piece hints at a problem I've had with a lot of prog: it's not progressive, it's regressive, cribbing more from classical and folk and not doing much with it other than stringing them together into suites connected by virtuoso drumming. That's why I've always loved Crimson, who seem to be doing something new and different with its noise. I love Genesis too, because I like the songwriting. But a band like Yes has always, to my ears, straddled songwriting with showing off, which is to say, chops for the sake of chops, which is what I almost exclusively get from ELP, whose chops I've never really appreciated, esp. compared to bands with *real* chops (see: Mahavishnu Orchestra).

It would be great to hear these ridiculous keyboard theatrics coming from "Keith, Greg and Carl," especially if it was a record company scam to try and attract fans of bubblegum act "Keith" (born James Barry Keefer) who'd scored big with "98.6." For more on the Keith who did "98.6," see... http://www.keith986.com/ or check him out on Spotify, where his catalog is mixed up with a bunch of other Keiths and his album Out of Crank is mislabeled "Out of Krank." Poor Keith. (Sorry, this thread: I've fallen down the Keith-hole and am currently jamming to his psychedelic turn on The Adventures of Keith - some pretty searing guitar popping up halfway through gentle lullaby "Melody.")

Actually, this would have been a great route for Emerson, Lake and Palmer: recruit Keith, Greg Allmann, and Carl Wilson, let them trade rhymes over a bedrock of organ and synth wizardry. Just needs a solid record-company hack to hassle them in the studio: I'm not hearing a single, baby! Get to the hook or you're back out on the street!

I guess it's not really inherently pretentious to use your last names as identifiers - I just think in the context of a rock band shooting for Greater Things it implies that they are already up there with Beethoven or something, or at least that this is some long-anticipated ultra team, the biggest names you could imagine, like it's Superman & Spider-Man teaming up. I guess there are tons of acts where that's not the case, but at this point, the precedents would have pretty much been Simon & Garfunkel (we are poet troubadours in no need of a lowly rock band name) and CSNY (supergroup). I should get over it though.

Joe Walsh's "In the City" almost qualifies.

that was kind of the opposite, no? originally recorded by the solo artist, and then recorded and made more popular by his band?

(toby) keith, gregg (allman) and (hayes) carll could be a pretty bubblegum country supergroup.

pretty good, that is. maybe.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Cubs Outfielder Junior Lake and Robert Palmer.

Would top charts.

i'm trying, and failing, to think of another song that was originally recorded by a band but became a bigger hit when a member of the band put it on his solo album -- without leaving the band. i can think of plenty of examples of solo artists having hits with songs by their former bands, but not any other examples of solo artists having hits with songs by their current bands.

Wasn't Dave Mason's version of Feelin' Alright a bigger hit than Traffic's version of same?

wait strike that for obvious reasons

he recorded it but only Joe Cocker's take charted, which is the one I was thinking of.

So wait, Allman Bros version of Midnight Rider was more popular than Greg Allman version, right?

But Greg's charted higher, ok.