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

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.

(xp) according to classic rock radio and the winds of time, yeah, the allman bros version wins, i think. but according to the billboard pop chart, the allman bros version doesn't exist and gregg allman's version was a top-20 hit.

Okay, there's lil' Zipper again...

Loved this part of the review so much I'm borrwing it for a while.

Allmans version is way better than Greg n Strings, but Buddy Miles' take is severely underrated.

Gah, there's gotta be a bunch of those out there.

Thought I had one with "Hickory Wind", but that was never released as a single by the Byrds or Parsons!

Midnight Rider: Nice start. Nice feel. Warm, cozy classic rock in the Woodstock vein. Dig the throaty singalong thing. We're all around the campfire here. The way the guitar leads and organ come in subtly on the "silver dollar" part makes them almost feel like sad wordless backing vocals - this feels very mid/late 60s in a way that I like. It also all feels very friendly for a song about a guy who's on the run and trying not to get caught. It's maybe a little mournful, but not urgent (urgent). That's okay though - it's like the rider is pausing at a stranger's campfire, sharing some stew and letting his guard down (just a little) while the coyotes howl in the distance somewhere. I realize this is the wrong imagery for a southern band - I guess sub in the guy from "Everglades" with the slimy bog, skeeters and gators, etc. And, woah, uh, oops, ran out of tape, huh guys?

Yikes, that was one of the most abrupt fades we've had here. Makes me inclined to hear the song more as a fragment they're jamming on, a riff and a hook and some vague ideas for the story, than a fully-worked-out thing - at some point they kinda ran out of material and jammed for a little more before giving up for the night.

Second listen, with more of an eye on the lyrics (but still bobbing along). For a second thought he was saying "and the rum goes on forever," which shifts the geography yet again - this album dates from the band's "pirate" phase, from which they later distanced themselves. "That was a marketing stunt, something Roger (Hart) forced on us, which we did not like to say the least!" Gregg Allman explained in 1992. As I kinda thought, the lyrics are underwritten but the song's fine... this is about the riff, "one morrrre silver dollar," "not gonna let 'em catch me, no," and the instrumental break. I wouldn't change a thing about the arrangement, just think it could use a bridge and some better verses, hint at a little more of a story so that the rider's tale connects emotionally. Why's he riding again, who's trying to catch him? Usually in this kinda thing he's running from the law, or the love interest's father, or maybe other outlaws (he's going good, or just going it alone). The bridge could introduce some mixed feelings about riding, things he knows he's leaving behind - thinking of Paul Simon's "God Bless the Absentee" off the top of my head though obv that's a pretty different song - or sell his disdain for the stationary life that he can't have anyway. Right now he could be just trying to ditch on a parking ticket for all I know.

But I shouldn't ghostwrite too much here - overall this is a thumbs up, and I'm glad to add this one to my playlists.

otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzRYOAzS6sA

http://www.allmanbrothersband.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=XForum&file=viewthread&tid=57395

I promise, I was not going to even bring up anything so self-serving, but gr8080's kinda forcing my hand here.

wait, is that you, pplains? hilarious, and completely appropriate here.

He's been saying for years that that wasn't him.

Loved this part of the review so much I'm borrwing it for a while.

― Okay, there's lil' Zipper again (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, August 6, 2014 12:29 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yessssssssssss

I worked the knobs on it, yes.