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

Antonioni's Blow-Up.

Some of the only existent Page/Beck Yardbirds footage.

The story I heard is that Antonioni went to the Who first, who turned him down. Then he asked the Velvets (!), but they couldn't get over to the UK. So he settled on the Yardbirds.

Wow, the Zeppelin one really thunders forward, don't it?

I know, right? This was during Zep's "Punk?! Hey, we used to do that!" phase.

never really checked them out live before.

I always thought they were insanely inconsistent live. You could assemble a motherfucker of a live album from their best moments, but I have yet to hear one full concert that doesn't have a built-in nap time.

i've never seen "blow-up." what an awesome scene.

The story I heard is that Antonioni went to the Who first, who turned him down. Then he asked the Velvets (!), but they couldn't get over to the UK. So he settled on the Yardbirds.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, September 26, 2014 6:27 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And right before the Yardbirds, they cast Tomorrow (w/Keith West & Steve Howe), who got as far as some rehearsals and demoing two original songs for the film before being dismissed. The guitar that Jeff Beck smashes in the film is a actually a prop copy of the guitar Howe was playing at the time. The two Tomorrow songs were added as bonus tracks to the cd reissue of the soundtrack.

"Am I Glad To See You" (written in the style of "We've Got To Get Out of This Place" for the club scene): http://youtu.be/x3sjeMvcu94

"Blow-Up" (rejected title theme): http://youtu.be/d9ivkRcjzNo

Supposedly Jimmy Page overdubbed the lead on this version (the explanation being he befriended Scotty McKay when the latter opened for the Yardbirds when they came through Texas, and McKay later sent the tape to England to cash in a favor)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoEs-9NtpU8

Wait w this you've gotta nother THINK com

Coming, stupid phone, are you guys joking I've never heard that

"Think coming" sounds like someone's cutesy riff on "another thing coming"

It's a cutesy expression from the get-go, though - embracing "think" is just embracing the cock-eyed old-timey parents' logic wherein "think" becomes a noun (indeed, a thing) and the proposal is to replace your think with another one. "Thing" is either vague, or straight up menacing - the "thing" coming can only be the switch or the belt.

yeah, I always assume the "thing" you have coming is a metal hammer to the face

in the Priest song that is

re:Priest lyrics

Ohhhhh so hot, no time to take a rest, yeah!

I always parsed this as "no time to eat a Triscuit!"

― Darin, Friday, September 26, 2014 2:24 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No Time to Eat a Triscuit would be a good rock and roll biography title, maybe not of this band though.

Related: "No Time To Eat A Biscuit" sounds like a Kinks title from the RCA years.

mmmm, biscuits.

i've got another thing comin', i think. it's the last song in our mini-set of songs that end with i-n-apostrophe. this one is the apostrophe king.

SONG #33: JOURNEY "LOVIN', TOUCHIN', SQUEEZIN'"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTkHFQC3wow

Related: "No Time To Eat A Biscuit" sounds like a Kinks title from the RCA years.

Haha otm. Somehow, Ray convinced the suits at RCA to fund his triple-album/touring musical ode to English food.

Journey were the kings of build up, build up, build up, huge chorus in the last minute of the song

na na na na na na
na na na na na
na na na na na na
na na na na na

IT WON'T BE LONG, YEAH
'TIL YOU'RE ALONE WHEN YOUR LUH-UH-UH-UH-VUH

Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin': I'm not going to be lucky enough for this to be a cover of "Wizard of Finance," am I?

Startin' off okay. Don't expect this kinda bluesy, bad-to-the-bone thing from Journey. Oh wait, that vocal sounds kinda familiar. Maybe the tune. Is this like an old Motown thing? It sounds so familiar but I don't associate it with this big beefy arrangement. Man, I really can't tell if I've heard this before.

It's okay though. I don't like the BLOOZY side of classic rock as we've determined, but one thing I'll say for Perry's eagle-cry vocals is that they do slice right through that and create something distinctive. I guess that's a common move - Robert Plant, Steven Tyler - but if Perry has any skill it's giving just a tiny hint of vulnerability to that sound, so no matter how huge Journey sounds, it's possible to insert yourself at the center as the mortal hero, pure of heart, who finds the courage to strive on.

Na na na na...Oh, yeah, I definitely have heard this. Sorry, y'all. Not enough times that any aspect of it really sticks out to my memory though. The na-na part's not bad! It's not sold too hard with the vocals themselves, could basically be a loop, but the instrumental attack builds up underneath them, kinda inventing a power ballad or arena anthem out of this generic workout, all of a sudden. That little tinkly moment from the piano was a welcome toss-in, ditto the increasingly busy lead guitar. Even the acapella sounds great, recording-wise! Though I don't think the "live" ending adds much at all.

Y'know, though, I wonder about the suitability of "na nas" for a lovin' touchin' squeezin' kinda song. Maybe they're just so locked in by "Hey Jude" as signifiers of universal brotherhood - especially in a massed chant like this - that it's weird for them to be about individual lust or consummation or whatever. I could roll them back to "Land of a Thousand Dances" I guess - "na nas" just mean it's a party, everybody's joining in - - - but the pace of the song is too steady and anthemic for that.

Sideways thumb I guess - for all its skill, it's just still kind of grating and overbearing - can't see it slotting comfortably into most listening sessions without taking over the whole room.

Perry's eagle-cry vocals

Sam Cooke yo

I hate Perry/Journey with a passion, so the first time I ever saw the Cooke comparison (probably on ilm) I was like ohhhhh...... I totally got the Cooke-isms from Rod Stewart, never made the connection wrt Journey. And now I can't unhear it.

Song is based on Cooke's "Nothin' Can Change This Love"

Ohh HMMM. That might have contributed to its general feeling of familiarity to me though now I can't tell if I've ever heard this particular Cooke song. It's lovely, much better than Journey's. The Cooke vocal comparison more generally is going to take me a while - I've been chewing on that since it got discussed upthread and while I catch it in moments it isn't quite computing to me just because I think of Perry as so goddamn bombastic. Maybe more his melodic sensibility than his singing style? I can totally hear Cooke "doing" just about any Journey song, quite fluidly ("Just a small town girl...") but not sure I can hear Perry doing most Cooke songs without flailing into their delicate surfaces and smashing them all into bits.

all those whoah-whoah-oh extended vowels is totally from Cooke

^^^ the way Perry bends "when I'm alo-oh-one" for one. It's the melisma thing.

Oh, wow, that melisma thing is totally on point. Hold on to that feel-ay-ee-ay-ing, honest you do, honest you do...

There are several youtube videos dedicated to arguing who was the better singer, Cooke or Perry.

http://makinghistoryfun.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/fdr1936.png

Republicans are people too

lolling so hard, first I thought that was a mispost that was supposed to geo to the politics thread. I'm sure if you asked my sister, who had teen idol posters of Steve all over her walls in 1981, you'd get "Sam Who?"

As goes Maine.

BTW, I really only know Cooke from the biggest hits and the one album I have, Shake, which is great - think I'll put it on next (currently spinning Night Moves, thanks this thread!). Kinda thought of him as mainly a singles artist, but does he have definite must-have LPs I should keep an eye out for?

Night Moves and Live at the Harlem Square Club are the albums to have. otherwise he's a singles dude.

er lol NIGHT BEAT that should say

Night Beat is unbelievably good, one of the best r&b records ever imo

If you look hard enough, you can score both Night Beat and Harlem Square Club in recent remasters for $5 each at big box store bargain bins.

awesome, thanks! Man, he coulda done an amazing "Night Moves" though.

awesome, thanks! Man, he coulda done an amazing "Night Moves" though.

oh god yes.

technically this is not a continuation of our comin'/rollin/squeezin' songs-that-end-in-an-elided-G series, as it is easy to see that there is a G at the end of knocking in the song title. but if you can actually hear mick jagger pronounce that G, you are a better listener than i.

SONG #34: THE ROLLING STONES "CAN'T YOU HEAR ME KNOCKING"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElnnE49absc

this is from one of the five or six albums that have been my favorite rolling stones album at various points in my life.

this song is the jam

never ever heard it on the radio

i heard "connection" on my classic-rock station yesterday! but classic-rock radio is weird here in LA.

They actually play "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" fairly regularly in Southern California, which is weird because I don't remember hearing it EVER on the radio anywhere else. But it got me to buy Sticky Fingers again so it's all good.

It's kind of become a go-to Stones 'deep cut' whenever they come up for such a thing since the early 2000s.

Can't You Hear Me Knocking: Shit, yeah, that's a riff and a start. Big and surly. I like how it seems like Jagger is just kinda trying to make his way into this thing, throwing interjections around wildly with the song not quite letting him find his socket. The GIMMEHIMMEDONGY! - oh duh, that's the title - that sounds great. Not so into the more melodic "help me baby, ain't no stranger" part, sounds more "Angie" but I like how even that gets buried in more dissonant guitar attack. It's like the "knocking" is them locked up in this tiny shack, bashing around to get out. Wait, "hear me frowning"? That doesn't make sense. "Hear me howling all around your HOOS street"?

Digging the little percussive loose break here. Pausing for some more rum and a game of cards before they get back to smashing through the floorboards. Wow, and it keeps going. I'm oddly liking this for some of the same reasons I liked "Roundabout," don't know where it's gonna go, this long part with the prettier guitar and the sax - really chill, really just letting the instruments go where they wanna go, regardless of the song we started in. Now at around 5:00 it's reminding me of Santana, with the big wailful guitar sound and the hint of an organ pumping away in the background somewhere. I'm still hoping we get back to the rockin' part but it would also work fine if we just kept wandering. Seems like it's picking up steam now - this must be great in concert, with heat building in the air - and more, and more. And - - ha! That was one of the most perfunctory endings we've had around here and it actually works as a kind of surprise punchline. Really did think we'd get the triumphant crash back into the chorus. Frampton must have been pondering this with regard to "Do You Feel Like We Do?"...

Big thumbs up, would happily listen again. Sorry for the break, been writing and stuff, ILX time largely reserved for hand-wringing about GamerGate. Saw this get mockingly name-checked in a "what's become of our beautiful board" thread and realized it was time to return to the fold.

good number to come back to imo. #11 in the Stones poll for a reason!

welcome back!

I like how it seems like Jagger is just kinda trying to make his way into this thing, throwing interjections around wildly with the song not quite letting him find his socket.

one of the cool things about this one is how the verse and the chorus are basically the exact same music, with jagger separating them by singing in different spots. he answers the riff in the verse and sings along with it in the chorus. trying, unsuccessfully, to think of other songs that do it just like that.

i've never been big on the "ain't no stranger" part either. it sounds like they're suddenly slipping into a grateful dead song there.

around 5:00 it's reminding me of Santana, with the big wailful guitar sound and the hint of an organ pumping away in the background somewhere. I'm still hoping we get back to the rockin' part but it would also work fine if we just kept wandering.

santana otm. hoping we get back to the rockin' part also otm. i'm sure that when i first heard it i waited, mouth agape and animated question mark over my head, while they refused to do so. but i'm so used to that ending by now that i just tend to bliss out with them and accept that the song, per se, ending a long time ago.

#6 on my classic rock ballot.