jff

Welp...

That's that then.

Buckle in for Trump's second term.

 

I have been using Reverb LP mostly since I bought a record player a year ago or so. Today I noticed this announcement on their site. Bit bummed. I agree that it is great site to peruse records. Never had any issues when I bought records through the site, either.

 

 

 

 

I saw that, too.  I've been weeding out records from my collection over the last year with the intention of selling them on Reverb.  I've been putting it off because it's a lot of work cleaning, grading, pricing, listing, then packing and shipping once they sell, and dealing with returns/lost packages/crazy people.  All that work for a slow trickle of $10 or $20 at a time.

Now that Reverb is out of the game I'll probably sell them all as a lot and be done with it.     

 

 

Walk This Way - Drummer goes, boom-BAP-boom boom BAP. I know (as well as everybody here) it goes, boom-BAP-ba boom boom boom- BAP. That kinda pissed me off. 

 

That's Lord of the Thighs.  Walk This Way is boom BAP ba boom boom BAP.   One less boom before the second BAP.

I didn't watch it, but it sounds like the drummer on the Grammys missed the ba.   Any half-way decent drummer would know it's the ba that gives that groove its character, and it's inexcusable that they didn't play it right.

Great photos!

On a somewhat related note, I noticed somewhere else on the web that this same resort is hosting a Widespread Panic festival right now  That seems like a pretty good way of doing things.  Keep the stage and infrastructure set up and have one event after another all season long.   Was there an event the week before Sky Blue Sky?   

Nice that Joey was able to appear. I slagged Aero for opening Vegas shows with Joe Perry's Let The Music Do the Talking and I'm sticking with that but Foo Fighters sound pretty great doing it.

 

“Rats in the Cellar,” Cheap Trick

“Crazy,” Jonas Brothers

“Angel,” Luis Fonsi & Emily King

“Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” Ashley McBryde

“What it Takes,” Gavin DeGraw

“Janie’s Got a Gun,” Kesha

“Cryin,’” Yola & Gary Clark Jr. 

“Livin’ on the Edge,” LeAnn Rimes

“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” John Legend

“Home Tonight,” Jessie J

“Walk This Way,” Melissa Etheridge with Nuno Bettencourt

“Back in the Saddle,” Sammy Hagar with Orianthi

“Let the Music Do the Talking,” Foo Fighters

“Toys in the Attic,” Foo Fighters

“Big 10 Inch Record,” Aerosmith

“Dream On,” Aerosmith with H.E.R.

“Sweet Emotion,” Aerosmith

“Train Kept A-Rollin,’” Aerosmith with Alice Cooper & Johnny Depp

What is this a setlist from?

Wow, nice shot. If we're going by top 10, then Evil Ways and Black magic woman both would qualify...

 

But yeah - they had 2 #1s in a row in 1999. 

Oh cool, I didn't realize those two songs made the top ten.  I thought they had only hit the album charts.

Yeah, the Dead are the only ones that immediately sprang to mind...

Now that I think of it, I think Santana beats Aerosmith.   Smooth was his first #1 in 1999, 30 years after the debut  album in 1969.

TIL that Aerosmith only had one #1 hit in their career, and it came in 1998 for whatever that song was that they did for the Armageddon movie. That's 25 years to get a #1. That's got to be up there as longest time to get a #1, no? Are there any other notable long waits for a #1?

 

The other week I learned that The Kinks never had a #1 in the US. That surprised me. 

Someone else had to write it for them.  That's gotta hurt.

I don't know about #1s, but the Grateful Dead had their only top 10 hit (Touch of Grey) in 1987.   22 years after forming.

He's really so good. I've been listening on public radio to and from work..... some really incoherent yelling Republicans (and a few sloppy Democrats too) have taken the podium in both the House and now the Senate steps of the process. He's so clear, and calm, and focused. If I say Atticus Finch-esque is that too much?

Not even slightly.  Since I mentioned Heather Cox Richardson...

Atticus Finch is the parallel she drew from yesterday's hearing:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/

 

I'm sure this is very true, but when the votes start, alphabetically, and say a Lamar Alexander, whom is retiring at the end of the year, start voting yes, the flood gates could open.  As pessimistic as I am on most days, senators need to hear our voices. 

 

I agree and hope you're right.

I just hope I get to go on the Aerosmith rollercoaster later this year when I go to Disney World.   Stupid thing was out of service last time I was there. 

The payments for his replacement are not really in dispute by Kramer so I don't know why we are making a big deal out of that.

 

Can we talk about how Aerosmith is opening their residency shows with a Joe Perry Project cover instead?

We can probably do both.

If they're dipping into Joe Perry's solo catalog, that seems like an admission they're sick of their own songs and they think their audience is, too.  Or that Joe Perry is throwing his weight around, which is sure to piss off Steve Tyler.

I see them imploding in the near future.

Many polls show Americans want to hear from witnesses in the impeachment trial.  Please consider calling your senators 202-225-3121.  

 

 

An interesting take on this from Heather Cox Richardson's daily blog (which I will say once again, EVERYONE should be reading daily):

Indeed, a very smart lawyer I follow on Twitter (but whose account is locked and he had not given permission to name him, so for now let’s leave him anonymous) observed this morning that perhaps even the few GOP Senators who would like to hear witnesses and see documents don't dare to demand them because they are afraid Trump will refuse even them, thus illustrating that they are powerless.

 

 

But - for Kramer and the band, what would more fair for all band members? Have it come off the top, before band shares are calculated? Why should the other band members have their shares reduced because the drummer couldn't make the gig?

Hey, if he willingly signed that shitty deal then he's fucked and can pound sand.  But in my opinion, nobody's shares should be reduced in any scenario that has so far been presented.  Their shares should be determined and known by all, set in stone, and insured well before the tour even starts, so nobody's pay is reduced if one or more members misses a show or even the entire tour.  There should be a plan in place in the event replacement members have to be brought in, whether it be insurance, a contingency fund, or any other financial scheme they can dream up.  But saying "it comes out of your pay" flies in the face of the "band of brothers" image they try to portray.  

No.

One, my contract doesn't allow them to do that. 

Two, my position isn't unionized, nor am I striking, so there's no scabs involved.

 

Let's not play semantic games.  I will give you the benefit of the doubt and believe/hope you know what I meant by scab.

So I'll ask a different way:

You don't think the clause is that bad.  Would you agree to that clause at a job you've been loyal to for decades, if your contract is ever renegotiated?

Meh, I don't think that clause is that bad. You get paid even when you miss shows, which is better than not getting paid, because they're certainly not paying the replacement drummer more than what a band member's share would be. Getting paid is always better than not getting paid. 

 

Is that what your boss does when you miss work?  Take some of your pay and give it to a lower paid scab, leaving you with the leftovers?

I was aware of Uncle Tupelo when they were an active band, but I don't think I ever heard them.  I think I unfairly associated them, based on the word Tupelo, with the local rockabilly scene that was rapidly morphing into a greaser version of a swing revival, and for that reason I had no interest in hearing them.  

I first heard Wilco when I worked in a restaurant.  It was a place where a lot of musicians worked, and the owner was a musician, so he let us bring in CDs to play in the dining room.  AM was new at that time, and was one of the most frequently played CDs.  I remember thinking a lot of the songs were really catchy.  Box Full of Records is really good music for bussing tables. That's how Wilco came onto my radar.  I think I saw them on TV a few times after that, and enjoyed them, but it wasn't until YHF that I actually bought a Wilco album and became a fan.  I had heard the hype for that one, and I saw the CD in a store while I was in DC.  Our hotel had a CD player, and we listened to it as soon as we got back to the hotel and loved it.

At the same time I was first hearing Wilco, Sun Volt's first single was on the radio constantly, and then I learned that this guy and the Wilco guy were from Uncle Tupelo.

Someday he's going to die.  Probably of heart disease.

That's all we're going to get.

None of the three contestants on Jeopardy! last night could identify a picture of Adam Schiff.  I understand last night's episode was taped two months ago.  At that time, the impeachment hearing was underway and Schiff was one of the highest profile members of our government.

It's scary to think smart people have taken their eye off the ball. 

I'm surprised they had the sense to induct T. Rex.  I figured they'd snub them, since Bolan and most of the key band members are dead and they won't be able to sell them tickets to the event. 

That really jumps out at me. As woefully incompetent as most of this administration is they seem to grasp the value of obfuscation and the blurring of reality. It seems to be the whole point for them.

Yep, create so much chaos nobody can stay on the trail of any single misdeed. 

Do one thing, and if there's serious pushback, do a few other things, most of which go unnoticed or underreported.  Maybe one will get seriously called out, but you've accomplished five other nefarious things in the meantime.   Then when one starts getting attention, do something bigger, and everyone will forget about the first one.

How many times during this administration have people said "we're in a constitutional crisis"?   And how many of those things can people even remember at this point?

They're very good at getting things that would blow up in anyone else's faces, and derail entire presidencies to NOT blow up in their own faces, and be seen as just more of the same.

 

Echo in the Canyon: Everything felt fake and forced. Seriously, listen to the incredibly scripted conversations between Jacob Dylan, Beck, and Regina Spektor. The super phoney audience applause every time someone would sing their first part in a song. Never before has a documentary offered such little insight. Why was Tom Petty in it so much? He's from Florida. He has nothing to do with The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, etc. He wasn't even making records till ten years later.  It felt like after he passed they just edited in everything they had of him. Brian Wilson and David Crosby were great though. I just saw another music documentary, called Carmine Street Guitars which was much better than this. Honestly, as someone who was neither alive in that era and has never been to southern California, I thought Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, a film with a great deal of fiction in it, gave me a better understanding of that scene and era.

 

This is on the money.  I really wanted to like this, but it was pretty flimsy.  The performances were mediocre, and none of the stories went into any depth.   Carmine Street Guitars was very good.  Haven't seen Once Upon a Time yet.

On the subject of music docs (maybe I mentioned these on the old thread) but the Roland Kirk doc and The Jazz Loft on Amazon are both really good. 

My New Years Resolution is to keep a food diary and track everything I eat, with the goal of pinpointing the specific types of food that give me abdominal pain.

I wouldn't call this a resolution, but more of a hope/desire, and that is to get back to playing music with others.  I moved across town a couple years ago and, for unrelated reasons, my band ended around the same time.  As a result, I've been a lot less socially active over the last two years than I want to be going forward.  But my guitar playing has vastly improved in that time spent at home, and I've worked up quite a bit of music that I think could be good, so I hope I can find some compatible people to play with this year.  Are any of you drummers or bassists in Atlanta and want to play some soul-jazz leaning rock music?

Really?? At this point I assume you're at 24/7. Can't listen to more than that.

They'll need to learn to listen to more than one recording at a time. 

a particularly scathing take on the Obama years:

 

https://newrepublic.com/article/156066/decade-liberal-delusion-failure-obama-presidency

This kind of article strikes me as little more than "If we had known Trump was going to be president, and what he and the GOP were going to be like, we would have kicked more asses when we had the chance."

It makes some legitimate points, but it feels to me like arguing in bad faith. 

I used to hear Wilco every time I left the house when I was living in a 98+% white neighborhood in the late stages of gentrification.

Since moving two years ago to an area that is much more diverse, probably majority black, and far less affluent, I have not heard Wilco a single time.  

That's not surprising in the least, but what is interesting to me is that I work next to a college campus, and I have never heard Wilco when I go out for lunch or coffee.  Wilco seems like it'd be a happy medium between college students and office workers.