CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL parking lot tailgate pre-party -- nominations, discussions, parameters, etc.

yeah, not advocating for "Wonderful Tonight". Just feel like in any situation with slow-dancing (weddings, school dances, etc.), you're going to hear it.

xp

in any situation with slow-dancing (weddings, school dances, etc.), you're going to hear it.

oh god, yes

Also, feel like regional differences coming to the fore in Doc's list. For example, the Atlanta station seems to have totally avoided Rush.

OTM re "Wonderful Tonight". Tbh, I'm also pretty surprised that someone who listens to a lot of classic rock and reads message board threads on the subject would have never heard "Roundabout". I can understand hating it but it seems like the sort of thing a classic rock listener would have an opinion on.

xposts Yeah, is there a North/South divide there re Rush? They seem to be a total staple on CR stations in the Northern US.

I live in Atlanta and Rush definitely get played on CR radio now. I can't speak for Z93 in the 80s/90s because I can only barely remember it.

I've only heard Roundabout a few times in my life and I can't remember anything except the intro.

Huh, maybe I'm wrong about "Roundabout".

I guess they've dropped off CHEZ's all-time greatest songs list too.

yeah, I've never heard "Roundabout" on the radio & I can't really remember how it goes, though I've listened to it before

same -- maybe i've heard it, but i never knew what it was

We definitely used to hear "Tom Sawyer" but I kinda think that was the beginning and end of it. Atlanta's a weird test case - the population's mostly transplants from the north in the 50s and 60s, so I imagine a more "southern" city would be even more down-the-line, and probably load up on obscure Skynyrd. Atlanta probably got the middle of the road, not too much of anything in particular, which makes it kind of bland. Clearly prog didn't thrive down there, but even some of the northern meat-and-potatoes acts (again, Seger) seem to have not had the same depth of CR play, but their big songs were totally huge. I wish I'd had access to this more diverse playlist!

Listening to Don't Look Back reminds me though why the "hairy bikers" angle isn't quite right either - this is aspirational theme music for sensitive heroes who are going to take you sailing through the sky on prismatic guitars. There's this huge utopian hangover from the 60s, taking different forms than the rugged rebel on the motorcycle. I believe what we achieved / will soon be left behind! Classic rock is as dreamy as it is anything else.

i could easily program a classic rock station with nothing but you list of songs you've never heard, dr. casino. i'm intrigued by this. i'd love to do that and force you to listen, preferably in a laboratory setting with you all wired up and machines recording your physical and emotional responses. or maybe just start a thread where you have to listen to one of these per day and say something about each one, in real time. i have a feeling science could learn from this.

i have a separate feeling that you'd find yourself repeatedly saying, "oh wait, i know that one, i just never knew what it was." but maybe i'm entirely wrong about that. regional/generational/etc differences fascinate me.

i dunno about dreamy

*resisting urge to post "dream weaver" video*

hahah i am down for this experiment but you may be right about at least some of them. I checked "Wonderful Tonight" at least - I totally know that (boring) song. "Urgent" - I got up to the chorus going "yeah, don't know this, but it's pretty cool at least until dude starts singing, I like the spacy creepy sound, sorta Sunglasses At Night, would be a good dystopian sci-fi soundtrack song" - and then he starts going URRG ENT URRG ENT and I realized I heard this on an XM station a few months ago or something. Definitely did not hear it growing up though.

You should all listen to Roundabout right now.

i've heard it, i just don't know it very well!

i wish i could say the same for basically every Foreigner song

These are my songs off the OG list that I have no idea about whatsoever.

The Greg Kihn Band – The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ‘Em)
Head East – Never Been Any Reason
Marshall Tucker Band – Can’t You See
Outfield – Your Love

I'm gonna give them a listen and report back with gasface/yayface for all 4

I never realized how much I actually love Foreigner. Lou Gramm's voice just kinda hooks me I guess.
Except Dirty White Boy. I can't really get into that one for some reason.

You should all listen to it right now even if you've heard it, I meant. It will be like that scene in Magnolia except we'll all listen to Roundabout and hopefully it won't rain frogs.

xp I would be folding money you know The Breakup Song and the Marshall Tucker Band song.

I'm singing The Breakup Song to my computer monitor like you can hear me, this is how sure I am of it.

The Breakup Song is really good!

uh uh uh uhuh uhuhuh

Oh shit VG these are all STONE CLASSIX you will be pleased

"Your Love" is a song that until a few years ago had always assumed was either by The Police or Men at Work.

This thread is definitely beginning to eat itself, but there's no way I'm going to be able to assemble the final list until after the weekend, so you guys will be able to continue tailgating until Monday at the absolute earliest. Please play nice, though, kids, I don't want us to have an Altamont situation before the show has even begun.

Ha, I knew "The Breakup Song" by heart but didn't know the title or artist until someone played it in plug some months back.

I don't want us to have an Altamont situation before the show has even begun

hey bikers, i know we've been talking about you a lot in this thread, but we did not mean to summon you here. please leave now. we'll hire our own security, thank you very much.

And please keep in mind that I'm more interested in nominating em all (that aren't clearly somehow outside the scope of the poll) and letting the electorate sort em out, so I would hate for the debates over what deserves just to be on the noms list get too ugly.

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

lol

The Greg Kihn Band – The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ‘Em)
yayface
ohhhhhhhhhhhh that song. Kinda like a low-rent cross between Billy Idol + Springsteen. I like it! Except the drums/etc sound really kinda dead, it's a shame

Head East - Never Been Any Reason ---
(yayface & a bit of gasface)
the keyboard is kinda gross & jarring & annoying. But I like the rest of the song a lot! never heard this before in my life

Marshall Tucker Band - Can't You See ---
(yayface!!!!) omg loving it from the flute intro right away. I don't think I've heard it or them before but the song also sounds kinda familiar...might be just the classik southern rock structure. LOVE THIS. Right in my skynyrd/allman bros wheelhouse. I will be seeking out more Marshall Tucker for sure

Outfield - Your Love
(yayface)
ohhhhhhhhhhhh this song yeah I have heard this song a thousand times on the radio here and I never had any idea who sang it. dude sounds like Sting kinda? the only thing I don't like is that it gets kinda boring after you hear the chorus like a hundred times. but it's good!

Marshall Tucker definitely my favorite discovery of these, I'm hooked

Wondering if Head East were more a regional thing? They were from IL, I'm in MN, so I've heard this song a million times.

the keyboard in "never been any reason" is one of those things that's real awkward at first but becomes more endearing the more you hear it

There's an actual biker who lives a few houses down from me and when he rides around the streets in the morning he plays his radio loud--usually it's the Moody Blues.

"Stone in Love" - Classic or Greatest 4:25 In The History Of The Bay Area?

oh damn wrong thread. well, the point stands :)

Weird, never heard this Head East song before, not even on Chicago stations.

I'm putting on Head East now to see if I recognize it. (Answer: not so far)

Also, no joke, this is at the end of my street, about a 10s walk from my place: http://www.bikerschurch.com/

Listening to Don't Look Back reminds me though why the "hairy bikers" angle isn't quite right either - this is aspirational theme music for sensitive heroes who are going to take you sailing through the sky on prismatic guitars. There's this huge utopian hangover from the 60s, taking different forms than the rugged rebel on the motorcycle. I believe what we achieved / will soon be left behind! Classic rock is as dreamy as it is anything else.

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, June 19, 2014 12:31 PM (17 minutes ago)

completely otm, and (as usu) damn well said. i was pushing the knuckle-dragging riff rock thing w/ tongue in cheek to some extent, but admitting in the back of my mind that the troo kvlt CR palette was a hell of a lot broader. black light wizard posters hardly belong to bikers alone. yr aspirational dream weavers have to figure in, too.

OK, I like the keyboards in the Head East.

was just listening to jason and the scorchers - "white lies", "last time around". both good songs. can't imagine they ever got any CR radio play, then or now, though they deserve it abt as much as the georgia satellites.

skynyrd's "simple man" is beautiful and dopey and beautiful. surprised anyone's questioned it.

same goes for the head east track. though it don't know the band in general or the song by name, it was an instant "o hell yeah, THIS song!" for me. maybe you have to be be of a certain age...

when jason and the nashville scorchers started out (i refuse to omit the nashville), they were alt radio all the way (and they eventually became basically an alt-country taste, didn't they?), whereas the georgia satellites were mainstream rock radio and mtv from the start.

xpost There was a period where AOR stations were playing rootsy stuff like Steve Earle, the Bodeans and Los Lobos alongside the Zep and Floyd, but that music never really made the leap to the classic rock format alongside Georgia Sat. etc. Not popular enough I guess.

xp yeah, i gesso. i just think of them both as MTV bands.

I wish I could say with any certainty that I'd heard Hot Chocolate's "Every 1's A Winner" on CR radio before, because I want to vote for it, but I think the chances that happened are very slim. Even though it's kind of disco/funk, I always lump it in with Billy Squier and the like.

Ugh, "Copperhead Road" is a staple on CHEZ.

Marshall Tucker Band - Can't You See ---
(yayface!!!!) omg loving it from the flute intro right away. I don't think I've heard it or them before but the song also sounds kinda familiar...might be just the classik southern rock structure. LOVE THIS. Right in my skynyrd/allman bros wheelhouse. I will be seeking out more Marshall Tucker for sure

oh mannn check out "Heard It In A Love Song" if you don't know it, flute is all over it and it's basically a big meditation on making poor/asshole love/life decisions because of the subconscious influence of pop music, aka the ILM manifesto

"breakup song" is the shit though, they just don't write 'em like that anymore ;_;

Copperhead Road is awesome fuid