Influential Music

[Meursault]

Death Or Glory
Lovers Rock and pretty much the rest of the album, the I'm Not Down and Train In Vain seem a bit bit to pussy, though I love the Cure and even more pussy music, so i won't pretend the whole album isn't good.

[Meursault]

Man that melodic break at the 4 minute mark to the end of It's Good To Be King by Tom Petty sure is moving.

I love this Wildflowers album.

[Thorngrub]

Well I saw Simon & Garfunkel last night, and let me tell you they were fantastic. And 2 nights before that I met Johnny Indovina at the bar before he went on later that evening to headline the Dark Arts Festival with HUMAN DRAMA. Their performance was simply stunning -- and if you're not familiar with Human Drama's musical presence - - then I weep for you. Now I'm all fired up to see their very Last Performance on December 10th this year in Hollywood. What a beautiful legacy they have carved out into the heart of the world. Meeting Johnny was an inspiring moment I'll never forget. They played many of my favorite songs, like This Tangled Web We Weave, My Skin, I Bleed For You, The World Inside, Death Of An Angel, I Could Be A Killer, A Million Years, Another Fifty Miles, I Am Not Here, Quiet Desperation, and of course . . . (my personal favorite), The Waiting Hour. A show to carry in the depths of my heart for all time.

Simon & Garfunkel were in top form last night at the Delta Center to a packed house. Highlights for me were The Boxer, Scarborough Faire, The Sounds Of Silence, Old Friends, A Hazy Shade Of Winter, Homeward Bound, I Am A Rock, and my own personal highlight of the show -- Paul's own American Tune, delivered in a heart stirring rendition sure to have raised the goosebumps on most everyone there. They had a seven piece band: 1 guy on a beautiful Steinway grand piano, 1 guy on synth; 2 drummers; a bass; and 2 guitars (+ S&G) = 9 members onstage, it was like Slipknot, yo. No seriously their band rocked, the guitarist played the cello on a couple of songs. I didn't think they'd dust off the 59th St. Bridge Song (feelin' groovy), but they closed the show with it & it could not have been more appropriate. After bringing us down to the most introspective pits of the soul, it was good to be brought back up and planted on our feet again.

And tonight . . . the night I've been waiting for all summer:

RUSH

[tuneschick]

Thorn, I'm so glad you enjoyed the S&G show! I went to see them back in November and seriously, it stands as one of my all-time favourite shows.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that I've been a huge, huge fan since I was about 7 years old, and had always dreamed that a day would come that I would get a chance to see them. As corny as it sounds, seeing them on stage together made me realize just how important their music has been to me over the past 20 years.

Their band was fantastic, I agree. I got absolute chills when they started 'The Boxer' and 'America'. And, same as your show, they finished with 59th Street Bridge Song, and everything in the world was suddenly A-OK.

Glad you had as good a time as I did.

[tuneschick]

OK, shit, I have not a creative thought left in my head. I made a Johnny Cash mixed CD for my dad - a bunch of stuff from the box set, San Quentin, Orange Blossom Special, the God/Love/Murder albums... and I need a kickass name for the CD, and just can't come up with anything. Someone? Anyone?

[angel]

welll maarts, sorry you went out just now but portugal are playing like theyre on heat in this tourny, lets face it

i have been bigging up cristiano ronaldo all year, and finally my commitment to his potential and skilfullness is paying off.

he looked a bit of alright when he de-robed tonight too

[Kensterberg]

Just read this review of the "new" reissue of Diamond Dogs, one of my least favorite Bowie albums (and the worst thing he recorded in the seventies, IMO). But this says it all ...

When this came out in 1974, it was roundly dismissed as Ziggy Stardust's last strangled gasp. In hindsight, Diamond Dogs is marginally more worthwhile; its resigned nihilism inspired interesting gloom and doom from later goth and industrial acts such as Bauhaus and Nine Inch Nails. But even if you buy into the revisionism, this dressed-up two-disc reissue is as cynical as Dogs' decadent fantasy. The overblown dramas "Rock 'n' Roll With Me" and "We Are the Dead" whimper next to similar songs on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. And two of the eight songs on the extra disc -- a demo of the political satire "Candidate" and the Memphis soul-style outtake "Dodo" -- were first released as extras years ago by Rykodisc. What else is new? A bloodless 2003 remake of "Rebel Rebel." The only true diamonds here - the title track and the original "Rebel Rebel" -- are available on several far superior compilations.

As for your Johnny Cash CD, Mary, I'd probably call it something like "Ring of Fire" or some such shit. Pick one of your favorite songs and use that as the title, or a line from said song (though this approach once netted me a Midnight Oil comp that didn't have the title I'd cribbed the line from -- "south Pacific dream" from Now or Never Land; come to think of it, the Clash did this same thing with their live LP, so nothin' wrong with that!).

[Kensterberg]

FWIW, that Diamond Dogs review was from the actual Rolling Stone web site! ;D

[strawman]

tunes..I try to give most of my comp CDs a title, and if I were to put one together from Johnny Cash songs it'd probably end up being called Cashless Society.....

[Kensterberg]

DOH! I directed the Cash comment to Mary, rather than Tunes. You know you've been at a web site too long when you start mixing up names of people you've talked to for years. Sorry Tunes ... though I'm still of no real help re: a title for that Cash comp ... maybe you could call it "A Big Ol' Pile of Cash"

[strawman]

I'm sitting here listening to London Caling and it's not quite doing for me what it use to.

Shane I'm telling you that album is over rated around here...its been that way for me for at least 20 years....

...listen to what Bowig was saying and get some Stiff Little Fingers...I'd suggest a start with Nobodys Heroes, an album that came out about the same time (give or take) as London Calling, and believe me it certainly gets played more than LC at my house...I rate it slightly higher than Inflammible Material...

...also try to find a copy of The Vibrators "Pure Mania" or "V2". Yeah they copped some flack for being too old to play punk rock 9in their 20s!!!), but they played it great...I'd give the nod to Pure Mania by a hairs breadth..(and it contains the song Stiff Little Fingers, the song that spawned the name!!!)

...to be a little more diverse (but still 70s punk), try The Chords "So Far Away"...a slightly more straight on and more energetic version of The Jam circa In The City, Modern World era...huge ringing guitars and wild drumming....

[Meursault]

Thanks there Straw.

[Thorngrub]

Holzman, "Ring Of Fire" has a nice ring to it . . .

Tunes, the first thing that popped into my head for your mix was "The Man Comes Home", but I think Ken mighta beat me to it with his title.

Diamond Dogs. Ok the BS stops here. Speaking as a dyed-in-the-wool Bowie-ite of stops to calculate...going on exactly 20 years, I can state with cool confidence that DD is right up there among my favourite Bowie albums ever. So stop with all this "worst album of the 70's" and "worst Bowie album" bullshit. That is just WRONG!

And now the justification.

First off, there's the absolutely exquisite opener:

"And in the death
As the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare
The shutters lifted in inches in temperance building
High on poacher’s hill
And red mutant eyes gaze down on hunger city
No more big wheels

Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats
And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes
Coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers
Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of love-me avenue
Ripping and rewrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now legwarmers
Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald...
Any day now...

The year of the diamond dogs!"

If that isn't enough to showcase the jaded & explicit lyrics of an artist at the peak of his showmanship, the following songs on the album do so miraculously, exuding the very esprit de corps of the most decadent post-Industrial visionary rock artiste. The melodies & lyrics often reach depths of the sublime few other artists can claim to have plumbed:

"Something kind of hit me today
I looked at you and wondered if you saw things my way
People will hold us to blame
It hit me today, it hit me today

We’re taking it hard all the time
Why don’t we pass it by?
Just reply, you’ve changed your mind
We’re fighting with the eyes of the blind
Taking it hard, taking it hard

Yet now
We feel that we are paper, choking on you nightly
They tell me son, we want you, be elusive, but don’t walk far
For we’re breaking in the new boys, deceive your next of kin
For you’re dancing where the dogs decay, defecating ecstasy
You’re just an ally of the leecher
Locator for the virgin king, but I love you in your f**k-me
pumps
And your nimble dress that trails
Oh, dress yourself, my urchin one, for I hear them on the rails
Because of all we’ve seen, because of all we’ve said
We are the dead..."

Okay, maybe such lyrical genius is pearls before swine in today's glitter-jaded day and age. So fuck me, then. That song is nothing short of pure rock'n'roll genius, and I defy anyone to claim otherwise. Give the man his due props - The Thin White Duke didn't get to be The Goblin King for no good reason. This album is a literal treasure trove of French-decadence-era poesy as channeled through George Orwell in drag, what's not to like?

Just a tossed-off quatrain like

"One thing kind of touched me today
I looked at you and counted all the times we had laid
Pressing our love through the night
Knowing it’s right, knowing it’s right"

justifies & lifts this recording far above most of its ilk released in '74. The wry, cynical outlook on the human condition is captured perfectly in the following refrain from yet another 5-star classic song from this beloved album:

"Don’t talk of dust and roses
Or should we powder our noses?
Don’t live for last year’s capers
Give me steel, give me steel, give me pulses unreal

He’ll build a glass asylum
With just a hint of mayhem
He’ll build a better whirlpool
We’ll be living from sin, then we can really begin

Please savior, saviour, show us
Hear me, I’m graphically yours

Someone to claim us, someone to follow
Someone to shame us, some brave apollo
Someone to fool us, someone like you

We want you big brother, big brother"

I mean, I could go on and on and on ... but I shall spare thee any further minutae on the reasons DIAMOND DOGS is to be loftily held high up in regard with the best of Bowie's prodigious output over the last 40 years. Just fuckin' put it on the turntable or the CD player and CRANK IT goddamnit. And open your ears and listen carefully. If you aren't moved then we truly are the dead.

[Thorngrub]

In short, any claims that "rebel, rebel" is the best song from Diamond Dogs is a true indication of just how vapid society has become. Sure, you can dance to it -- with any sex you like -- it's great for getting those heels off the floor, and it is as perfect a "pop"-single of alternative lifestyle as one might hope for. Yet it remains easily the most "throw-away" song on the album, outshone by nearly every other track. Such a collection of diverse insights into the politics of human beings should be considered nothing short of a true masterpiece, in every sense of the word.

[Thorngrub]

~ thoRn in your spInez