Shug

Well that sucked. I got nothing, didn't get past the waiting room until 10:25 and when I got to the ticket purchase screen for Tempe, everything was sold out. It might've been better to stagger the on-sale times for the different shows?

 

Several years ago I threated to start a thread about artists I have on my shelf that no one talks about anymore. That's part of the problem with collecting crap, you end up with alot of records that have gone out of style and favor. There are just so many musicians out there.

That doesn't sound like a problem to me! I don't give a rat's ass what's in style or favor if I like it. Gene Clark is frickin' awesome, as is Hillman. I think Hillman's songwriting in The Burrito Brothers is under-rated, (He and Gram wrote only a few songs, but man were they good!) His co-writing in Manasas is further evidence of Hillman's compositional skills.

Back to Gene Clark, if the only song he ever wrote was either Why Not Your Baby or Out On The Side, he'd still be worthy of admiration in American music history as one of the great songwriters.

Just consider him a buried treasure that those who discover are fortunate to find.

I've been seeing Petty & Heartbreakers live since the mid 80s and I will always hold the music from their prime in high regard. While the band seems to be playing better and better with more of a "live" sound in the studio, I think the songwriting has gotten noticeable weaker in the past ten years. Especially on Mojo (and the Mudcrutch record), most of the new songs were built around studio jams and finished very quickly, not crafted and fine tuned as Petty used to do. Petty is an incredibly great songwriter and I hate to see the inspiration to write great songs seem to fade away. But then I remember the excellent and simply beautiful ballad No Reason To Cry from the Mojo record. What a standout track and its a damn shame that it'll be forgotten so quickly. Its screaming to be covered by one of those female country superstars. I think it'd put Petty back on the radar of a huge swath of mainstream music listeners yet again (not sure that's a good thing for us hard core fans, but he sure deserves the accolades it'd bring).

Here's a review I wrote of the show I saw on the Mojo tour.

http://sugartown-shu...ke-me-as-i.html

My favorite Petty studio albums:

Hard Promises

Damn the Torpedos

Wildflowers

Long After Dark

Echo

My least favorite Petty studio albums:

Highway Companion

The Last DJ

Mojo

Good selections, but I feel like Misunderstood has to go into Far Far Away.

 

 

--Mike

Funny you should say that, because in another running order I came up with, it did. Yes, I know I am a dork!

Sunken Treasure

Misunderstood

Far Far Away

Kingpin

Say You Miss Me

Hotel Arizona

Dreamer In My Dreams

Red Eyed and Blue

I Got You

Monday

Outtasite

The problem with many 70s and 80s bands reuniting is that the singers' voices are often shot at whatever age they are. However...

Top of my list:

The FACES!!! Its kinda happened, but not like they've been talking about for years in interviews with the multiple guest lead singers and a full on US tour. And I really want it to happen with Rod Stewart, while he's still got a voice. I'm not holding my breath and I'm pissed at Rod for not getting on board when Ronnie and Ian and Kenny are raring to go.

The Georgia Satellites - Probably not a lot of Satellites fans on this board, but by their third album, they were writing some more serious songs, getting away from the goofy-hick stuff that got radio play. They had a huge Faces influence, with Ian McLagan playing on their records and they were a damn fine no-frills rock 'n' roll bar band. It was a crime they split up just when they were peaking. I think they could still pull it off if they wanted to.

I'd like to see the Kinks again, too. They were a great live band even into the 80s.

I listened to disc 1 last night, and disc 2 this morning. Disc 1 is far and away the best of the two, the 2nd disc is far too patchy imo. Its not crap by any means, just think that they could have added sunken treasure, someday soon, the lonely 1 and maybe dreamer in my dreams and given us a wonderful single disc album.

I understand the view that double albums should be respected in their entirety, but I also find it fun to whittle down even the ones I love to a tight single disc with a new running order. Here's my first stab at a single disc version of Being There. I considered putting Sunken Treasure as the album closer, it does make a nice final statement and sets a reflective mood for the send off, but it also sounds good in the middle of the record, I think. I like to open a record with a couple strong rockers, but its hard to not hear Monday and Outtasite at the end like at so many concerts. Its just an exercise in fun, anyway, not to be taken too seriously.

Monday

Outtasite Outta Mind

Misunderstood

Red Eyed and Blue

I Got You

Far Far Away

Say You Miss Me

Sunken Treasure

Hotel Arizona

Kingpin

Dreamer In My Dreams

I appreciate Pat for a lot of musical reasons, but I especially do when he's playing guitar. The Nels-Jeff-Pat three guitar version of Wilco is crazy-good and I love how they can all be heard individually, even when Jeff and Pat are doing a unison thing while Nels wails away. Handshake Drugs and Impossible Germany from the Ashes DVD are good examples of this, I think. Pat is awesome in Wilco!

Of course the other great studio album from this period is Bob Weir's "Ace". I think it's my favourite Non-Dead/Grateful Dead record, closely followed by "Garcia".

 

Black Throated Wind is one of the most sublime songs they ever did.

I LOVE the studio version of Playin' In The Band from Ace. Its like a perfectly distilled elixir balancing the exploratory jamming with a studio tightness, not too long and not too short. Of course, I like the deeply spacey freakouts they did on this tune live, but I've always felt this Playin' (and a lot of Ace) is some of the finest studio performances the Dead ever did.

right...it was all overdubbed...one easy way to tell is by listening to the harmonies - the band always harmonized well, but _never_ as good as they sounded on E72....

So that still leaves my question: Does Europe 72 Vol. 2 have overdubbed vocals or are the vocals from the actual performances? They are sounding pretty damn good on Sing Me Back Home!

I guess I'm the lone disenter in this thread, but saw Dawes last night and I was not into it. I liked the song Western Skyline a lot, but one song ain't enough to make a good show for me. Its weird for me to feel this way, because I'm usually all about passionate emotional expression in music, but I feel Dawes over-emote, like they are trying too hard or like it seems forced to me. Of course I have no way of knowing what they are feeling, but to my ears, the music doesn't feel as monumental as their contorted facial expressions would suggest, especially the drummer, what is up with that dude? It was seriously distracting to me the freakish facial expressions he was making. Maybe its just because they are young and inexperienced. They obviously have talent, but IMO, its not yet shaped into powerful music. Well, at least I checked 'em out and I don't have to worry anymore that I'm missing out on something I'd really like. Not every band is gonna thrill ya, and different folks like different things.

Blitzen Trapper came on after them and their experience showed. They had a more powerful sound to me, they played like a tight ensemble, but it didn't really look like it was so forced or so much effort. The thought occurred to me that they sounda little bit like a junior Wilco, not too bad.

Yeah, the shows were great, and night #2 probably the better one by just a bit. Jeff was certainly in a more funny chatty mood. Seeing and hearing Nels play Duane Allman's Les Paul was very cool.

Outside of the show, the scalping scene was outrageous. The scalpers had so many tickets, like a dozen each and there were easily half a dozen scalpers there each night. Fans with extras had a very difficult time getting rid of tickets, I don't think anybody got face value. Thanks to the "fan" who arranged days ahead of time to purchase my extras and then blew me off at the last minute without even a phone call, I ended up eating $90 in tickets. There's no way I'd sell my extras to the scalper scum. There weren't hardly any fans looking for tickets. How many people from out of town didn't get to see this show because it sold out in minutes, so they gave up and they don't even realize they could've gotten in for less than face value if they had made the trek to the show. And its all the fault of the scalpers, curses on their souls, may their karma bite them in the ass immediately, greedy bastards.

So it looks like the whole "stuff the ballot box" approach backfired, as we got neither Kingpin nor It's Just That Simple, but somebody who requested Less Than You Think was obliged and its fairly likely he or she was the only one who made that request. As I imagined, when it comes to the song request thing, they pretty much do what ever the hell they please regardless of how many votes a song gets. Maybe stuffing the ballot box pissed them off. Maybe they aren't that contrary, I don't really know. Thoughts?

Will Tootsie's be too crowded to even consider right before the show? I gotta go in there at some point, though. And Welch79, I get your point about the fun of discovering places for yourself, but when you are short on time, a list of solid recommendations can be very helpful. If you read this, would consider giving us such a list of the best dives and bars close to the venue for before and after show?

Not sold yet

 

 

In other news, who wants to help me get Kingpin played at night #1 in Nashville?

Since there is no way they're gonna do One Hundred Years From Now, I'll join you on voting for Kingpin on Nashville night #1. Sorry, Bea!

Its my least favorite song on Wilco The Album because of its disonance and angularity. It just doesn't sound or feel good to me. Figures its about the only song from that record that they are still playing on this tour . I guess the band's tastes go along with most of the fans here. I'd rather hear You Never Know or Country Disappeared.

I put in a request for Hotel Arizona in Dallas. I would encourage everyone else to do the same.

Great idea, if it depends on what song gets the most votes, maybe we should organize here and work together to get our desired rare songs played. I know, I know, getting people to agree on a song would be the hardest part, just kinda joking, but it would be cool. Who wants to start a campaign for One Hundred Years From Now in Nashville this weekend? For night #2, I requested Its Just That Simple.

Does anybody know the details of how the band uses the online song request feature on the official website? I think its so cool that they do this and I wish more bands did it. We requested Kingpin for the show we saw in Aspen last year and they played it and I'm assumming it was because of our request but maybe it was a coincidence. When they bust out something kinda rare, like She's A Jar in NYC last week, its that probably because someone requested it?

My questions are do they play more than one request per show? Do they just pick the request they like or do they pick the one that gets the most "votes"? Has anybody done a "write-in" request and had it played? I'd love to hear them do One Hundred Years From Now, but I'm sure that a huge long shot. Wouldn't want to waste my request on something that they probably won't do anyway.

I'd like to hear other people's experiences with the requesting.

Tom Petty did 20 (twenty!!!) nights at the Fillmore in SF in 1997 and it was, of course, awesome to see him in that size of a place. Larger venues? No thanks! More shows in smaller venues. More residencies/multi-night runs would be excellent. Bravo to Wilco for still playing special, historic and smaller venues like the Ryman and Cain's.

Getting tickets can be hard work, but that's life for a rock fan. Wilco do a great job of trying to get the tix to the fans. Pearl Jam (and I've heard, Dave Matthews, too) does it probably better than any one with their fanclub tickets, but Wilco still does it well. By the way, Dark, I have two singles for the Sat Ryman show for sale if that would help you out. See my post in the Got Extras thread.

I'm with ya, Melinda, completely. But many people aren't strongly anti-scalping and I don't think they'll ever be convinced to not buy from scalpers if they can afford it and they find it convenient. Some people want to see the show so bad, they'll pay whatever they have to. Others, like you and me, want to see the show so badly, we'll put a lot of energy into finding all those last minute face value ticket that are almost always there if you know how to find them and are willing to put in the leg work. Just two different kinds of people who'll probably never change.

Still available.

I have two singles (i.e. they are not together) for Sat. if you are interested. shug909@yahoo.com

section MF-6, row W, seat 11

section MF-4, row Q, seat 8

I believe the deal is - all the shows that were in the big expensive boxset are now all coming at separately. There is also the Europe '72 Volume 2 cd - which is a companion piece to the original Europe '72. This is not to be confused with the Europe '72 that was in The Golden Road boxset - which contains bonus tracks that were not on the original Europe '72 release. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Were the Europe 72 bonus tracks in the Golden Road box set just straight SBDs remixed or were there lots of studio overdubs like on the original Europe 72. I consider Europe 72 one the Dead's best studio albums!

 

part of what made brent great was that he played a real piano and hammond organ. brent's tunes were pretty bad at the end, but they were so fun to hear mixing up the first set.

I agree about Brent on the Hammond, it sounded fantastic and he was really a strong player on it. His electric piano sounds in the late 80s got a little bit too synthetic, IMO. Imagine if he had played a Fender Rhodes and/or an acoustic piano instead. I also don't care for We Can Run or Just A Little Light or I Will Take You Home, but his blues stuff was good. I liked it when he took a verse in Little Red Rooster and his f-bomb in Good Times Blues (Never Trust A Woman) always makes me smile. Tons of Steel, to me, is far and away his best song. Too bad it dropped out of the rotation so fast.

As for Vince R.I.P., I'm sorry, but his presence in the band was musically a complete disaster in every way. I have no idea why they hired him . I saw many killer shows with Hornsby, Arizona in Dec 1990 was fantastic and he rocked it hard. The Dead in the post-Brent era without Hornsby was a real disappointment to me.

I have two single tickets for the Sat. Nashville show for sale for cost, of course.

section MF-6, row W, seat 11

section MF-4, row Q, seat 8

These are hard tickets. Email me if interested.

shug909@yahoo.com