Friday Music Discussion

govmentchedda · Post by **govmentchedda** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:26 pm

I realize I'm a bit late for Friday afternoon office down time with this one, but:

What's the best intro song by a band? Meaning, what's the best first major song by a band, in your opinion?

Smells Like Teen Spirit is a contender, but might be disqualified based on it not being on Bleach. Alive is also great, but was Evenflow first?

I'll Stick Around by the Foo Fighters gets my vote.

What say you?

Scottie · Post by **Scottie** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:31 pm

I got this one . . . Joy Division Transmission.

howard · Post by **howard** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:25 pm

Scottie wrote:I got this one . . . Joy Division Transmission.

That is a high bar. But, I am not sure I heard Transmission first; otoh I remember being surprised that Transmission was not on the Unknown Pleasures album. Not that I could afford a high-priced import like that anyway.

Anyway--Watching the Detectives appropriately announced Mr. MacManus' arrival on the (US) scene. (the wiki tells me Less Than Zero was his first UK/Stiff single.) (there is a t-shirt from the glory days that I can no longer fit:)

That one is a pretty good tune too:

Calling Mr. Oswald with the swastika tattoo
There is a vacancy waiting in the English voodoo
Carving "V" for "vandal" on the guilty boy's head
When he's had enough of that, maybe you'll take him to bed
To teach him he's alive before he wishes he was dead

Scottie · Post by **Scottie** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:35 pm

howard wrote:
Scottie wrote:I got this one . . . Joy Division Transmission.
That is a high bar. . . .

Figured I'd go with something we can both play.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:36 pm

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:40 pm

howard · Post by **howard** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:49 pm

Here is an indication of when my prime hit. This is far more interesting than the knicks-dubs--glad I didn't shell out $150 for this mess.

The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog
Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
Run DMC - It's Like That

and, in their own way, the Pistols. No doubt what Johnny was all about:

I am an Anti Christ
and I am an Anarchiest

HDO45331 · Post by **HDO45331** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:50 pm

Rush2112 · Post by **Rush2112** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:53 pm

Add It Up Violent Femmes.

howard · Post by **howard** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:10 pm

Ooh, ooh, I got another one. Eno - Baby's On Fire

What was Guns 'N Roses' first single? Welcome to the Jungle? That one was pretty impressive.

Wiki sez that was their first US single; in the UK It's So Easy a couple of months earlier.

ETA: I considered Van Halen. But their first single was the same song as the Kink's debut single. So, no. (But Running With The Devil would've deserved top 50 consideration.) (Yeah, I got some dirty white boy in me.)

Post by **Sabo** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:33 pm

HDO45331 wrote:

I wish death on those involved with the writing and creation of that song. Same goes for the monkeys that wrote and performed "Cleveland Rocks".

howard · Post by **howard** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:35 pm

Here is a good one:

govmentchedda · Post by **govmentchedda** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:38 pm

The definition of "first big song" is tough. Smells Like Teen Spirit, as mentioned earlier, is a great example. No one outside of Seattle knew Nirvana prior to Nevermind, but after the fact, many went back to Bleach.

Radiohead is another group that's hamstrung by their first release. There's tons of great stuff on The Bends, but that damn Pablo Honey remains.

govmentchedda · Post by **govmentchedda** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:43 pm

Breakdown is fucking great.

I hope this thread does two things:
1) brings up a ton of "first songs"
2) ultimately becomes a Swamp poll to determine the best "first song" of all time.

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 11:15 pm

govmentchedda wrote:The definition of "first big song" is tough. Smells Like Teen Spirit, as mentioned earlier, is a great example. No one outside of Seattle knew Nirvana prior to Nevermind, but after the fact, many went back to Bleach.

Radiohead is another group that's hamstrung by their first release. There's tons of great stuff on The Bends, but that damn Pablo Honey remains.

Was just going to cite Creep.

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 11:19 pm

Was Muse legit before they released Supermassive Black Hole?

howard · Post by **howard** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:03 am

Before my time, but must be considered. It may have been the record that started the whole damn thing:

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:04 am

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:06 am

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:07 am

howard · Post by **howard** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:16 am

ohh, I don't like covers in this context. Oughta be your own song. Granted, the Byrds with a Y turned it into an electrified #1 record, launching a new sub genre, folk-rock.

If not for Mixed-Up Confusion, Robert Zimmerman could've won this contest with his second single release, Blowing In The Wind.

ETA: I was thinking Dirty Work was the first single off that first Steely Dan album. Wiki says Do It Again was the lead single (and wiki lists something I've never heard of: Dallas b/w Sail the Waterway as their first non-album 45 release; I don't know either of those tunes). Helluva debut album, Can't Buy A Thrill. (Did we ever resolve what the hell 'Brooklyn owes the charmer under me' means?) (And Midnight Cruiser remains my fav from that album.)

Whiter Shade of Pale, nice call. First Prog Rock #1 hit? (Unless the Moody Blues or the early, Syd Barret-Pink Floyd beat them to it--I doubt See Emily Play was a #1). Plus we get to associate it with Martin Scorcese visuals.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:28 am

howard wrote:ohh, I don't like covers in this context. Oughta be your own song. Granted, the Byrds with a Y turned it into an electrified #1 record, launching a new sub genre, folk-rock.

I agree with both of your points. But I lean towards the second when the musician is doing a radical re-interpretation. For example, Miles Davis doing Broadway show tunes.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:31 am

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:34 am

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:44 am

howard wrote:ETA: I was thinking Dirty Work was the first single off that first Steely Dan album. Wiki says Do It Again was the lead single (and wiki lists something I've never heard of: Dallas b/w Sail the Waterway as their first non-album 45 release; I don't know either of those tunes). Helluva debut album, Can't Buy A Thrill. (Did we ever resolve what the hell 'Brooklyn owes the charmer under me' means?) (And Midnight Cruiser remains my fav from that album.)

I heard all the songs on that album at the same time. I thought Reelin' was the best one. In any event, this is an excuse to watch one of my favorite internet video clips. What a performance!

Brooklyn owes lyrics are a total mystery to me. Bad debt in a card game? Psychological self-analysis? Sociological analysis of their freshman dorm at Bard? Burroughs-ian word salad? But what a song.

Whiter Shade of Pale, nice call. First Prog Rock #1 hit? (Unless the Moody Blues or the early, Syd Barret-Pink Floyd beat them to it--I doubt See Emily Play was a #1). Plus we get to associate it with Martin Scorcese visuals.

Certainly one of the very earliest. And the best of the whole genre in my view. Nice way to start a band. Kind of like if the Beach Boys had cut Good Vibrations in their first studio session.

howard · Post by **howard** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:47 am

DC47 wrote:
howard wrote:ohh, I don't like covers in this context. Oughta be your own song. Granted, the Byrds with a Y turned it into an electrified #1 record, launching a new sub genre, folk-rock.
I agree with both of your points. But I lean towards the second when the musician is doing a radical re-interpretation. For example, Miles Davis doing Broadway show tunes.

I can buy that. Considering what Elvis did with his first single: That's Alright Mama b/w Blue Moon of Kentucky. Compare his version of Blue Moon with Bill Monroe's original waltz--yeah, a fucking waltz--from a different planet.

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - That's Alright Mama
Elvis Presley - That's Alright Mama

Bill Monroe (including Lester Flatt and Earle Scruggs) - Blue Moon of Kentucky
Elvis Presley - Blue Moon of Kentucky

ETA: I love this stuff. Man, Jackson Browne was great back at the start of his career. Some say it was the cocaine that wrecked him; I think Nico fucked all the talent out of him.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:53 am

Great call on Maybellene. I thought Berry would have had quite a few singles out there before this one. Stuff in the traditional black R&B mode, trying to get on the segregated radio stations of the era. But I just looked it up, and didn't find what I expected.

Berry cut this song for Chess in the mid 50s. By then he was a veteran touring musician, not a young guy. Could it be that none of the dozens of small labels that cut black music in the post-war era would release his tunes early in his career? Was he too country for R&B, and too black to make it in country?

howard · Post by **howard** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 1:11 am

I was also surprised about Chuck Berry's first record. I'm just checking the google and the wiki for first releases of bands/artists in my personal pantheon of great.

Sure, the Best White Blues Singer in History is worthy with Down on Me, which made seventh-grade me giggle at the double entendre.

Eighth-grade me was blown away by this. A cover--but an English folkie-style tune, transformed, in the psychedelic, SF style. Man, I miss John Cipollina so much. At least there is tons of good stuff from him left behind.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 1:16 am

howard wrote:I can buy that. Considering what Elvis did with his first single: That's Alright Mama b/w Blue Moon of Kentucky. Compare his version of Blue Moon with Bill Monroe's original waltz--yeah, a fucking waltz--from a different planet.

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - That's Alright Mama
Elvis Presley - That's Alright Mama

Bill Monroe (including Lester Flatt and Earle Scruggs) - Blue Moon of Kentucky
Elvis Presley - Blue Moon of Kentucky

Totally agree. I thought of Elvis also when commenting about Miles. He was most definitely a creative artist at the start of his career. Amazing, considering his lack of musical background and job as a truckdriver. But somehow he didn't have on the musical blinders of his time. So he could dig Monroe, Sister Rosetta, Big Mama Thornton, Arthur Crudup, and church gospel all at the same time. I don't know his family background, but the guy had big ears.

I listened to some big box sets of Sam Phillips' recordings at Sun. Basically everything he cut. Elvis was not the only one working this terrain in Memphis. His sound was in the zeitgeist. But he was much better than the rest. It all came together -- a producer with the same taste, a hot guitar player, the voice, and of course, the charisma. If Elvis had died when he was in the Army in Germany I think he'd have a far stronger reputation today as a ground-breaking musician, capable of synthesizing apparently divergent strands of music as the Beatles did. His pop hits, his hips, and the Fat Elvis period over-shadowed some amazing work.

ETA: I love this stuff. Man, Jackson Browne was great back at the start of his career. Some say it was the cocaine that wrecked him; I think Nico fucked all the talent out of him.

As I'll bet you know, Browne wrote These Days when he was with Nico at age 16. But she cut it then (badly), not him. Or I would have posted that tune as his blockbuster-right-off-the-bat. How did this not make the cut for his first record several years later? It defies the imagination that a 16 year old could write one of the great classics of the world-weary lover genre. Did Beethoven write his Fifth before he got his drivers' license? I don't think so.

Of course, Jackson was with Nico. At 16. So maybe some credit is due her in this regard, not discredit.

I was a big Browne fan in the 70s. He's one of several reasons I moved to the West Coast as a rootless young man. I ended up in remotely the same orbit (friends or friends of friends). And, yeah, his work pretty much stopped speaking to me about the time he and his LA pals decided coke and lawyers were important song themes. Was coke what did him in as a creative musician? Who can say. Most in the pop and rock world don't do high level songwriting work for long, for whatever reason. I'll never understand it I guess. Maybe Browne will explain it to me in a song someday, the way he explained a lot of things that were on my mind in the mid 70s.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 1:25 am

Quicksilver got off to a great start with Pride of Man and this one on the first album.

In my book, Monterrey (above) over Woodstock. And certainly Quicksilver over the Dead and the Airplane. They seemed to be musical peers to me in the 70s, though I preferred the former. But history has somehow disappeared Quicksilver from the Rushmore of Bay Area bands. Guess they didn't have quite the same level of pop hits or the durability to make the same lasting impression.

howard · Post by **howard** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 1:28 am

I too was a big JB fan. Redneck Friend is a great, rocking tune, and senior year of high school, mixed in with my Temptations, Boz Scaggs and Tower of Power I listened to For Everyman hundreds of times.

I saw JB in 75 or 76; he was too fucked up to sit at the piano and perform. I took a harsh view of him since that night, I had paid good money (but I still bought his next two or three records.) (And David Lindley played solo for about an hour while JB tried to get it together, so I became a fan of Lindley.)But by the late 70s there was plenty of other great rock, and his stuff was more pop-y, movie theme type stuff.

Hey, you ever hear of a LA musician named Emitt Rhodes? Might be a bit before your time. I rediscovered him this week; an amazing artist who fronted a band that had radio hits when he was 17yo (Merry-Go-Round), made three amazing solo albums that didn't sell big but were critically acclaimed, particularly in Cali. Then he completely disappeared at age 24, walked away.

Since it is just us old farts tonight. I'll step aside when the kids with their hippy-hop and their Nickleback/Linkin Park come back tomorrow.

ETA: Don't get me started on Quicksilver, I can talk all night. Real briefly--label troubles, tension between Dino and the rest of the lads, and a lotta lotta fucking drugs. One of my buddies is a friend of Gary Duncan, and another buddy (Barry Melton from Country Joe and the Fish) played with John in the Dinosaurs, when John died from emphysema. (Barry and I used to share Giants' tickets, until I got my own.)

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 1:31 am

Just found this.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 1:58 am

howard wrote:I too was a big JB fan. Redneck Friend is a great, rocking tune, and senior year of high school, mixed in with my Temptations, Boz Scaggs and Tower of Power I listened to For Everyman hundreds of times.

I had a similar mix. Throw in some Rascals, Byrds, Eagles, Commander Cody, Guess Who, Kinks, CSNY, Emmylou, Gram Parsons, Marshall Tucker, Bonnie Raitt, anything Motown, and anything blues from Leadbelly to the Allmans, and you'd be listening to what was coming out of my window in the early to mid 70s. And, perhaps somewhat oddly, you'd hear 50s jazz combos (Coltrane, Stitt, Rollins, Evans), Basie and Duke. I played trombone, and was in full rebellion from the fusion and electric jazz scene that was fatally corrupting my jazz-playing peers.

I saw JB in 75 or 76; he was too fucked up to sit at the piano and perform. I took a harsh view of him since that night, I had paid good money (but I still bought his next two or three records.) (And David Lindley played solo for about an hour while JB tried to get it together, so I became a fan of Lindley.)But by the late 70s there was plenty of other great rock, and his stuff was more pop-y, movie theme type stuff.

Sad tale. He seems to have righted his personal ship. But he lost me musically after The Pretender.

Hey, you ever hear of a LA musician named Emitt Rhodes? Might be a bit before your time. I rediscovered him this week; an amazing artist who fronted a band that had radio hits when he was 17yo (Merry-Go-Round), made three amazing solo albums that didn't sell big but were critically acclaimed, particularly in Cali. Then he completely disappeared at age 24, walked away.

I've heard the name and an outline of the story, but don't know his music. Before my west coast time. And I was probably digging on the Jackson 5 right about then.

Since it is just us old farts tonight. I'll step aside when the kids with their hippy-hop and their Nickleback/Linkin Park come back tomorrow.

I listen to a lot of new music. If it's in the rock/pop/r&b world and the library buys it, I listen to it. And I give special attention to the bands that are discussed here. Decemberists, Grizzly Bear, The Shins, Frightened Rabbit -- that's what comes to mind. I am sure that many are as great as the musicians I grew up listening to. But I don't have the right cultural context to get deeply into it. I'm not dismissive -- I wish it were otherwise. But I have to admit that not much of it sticks with me. Still, I hold out hope that the next Emmylou Harris is right around the corner, jamming with the next Felix Pappalardi. I'll try to recognize them despite the tatoos and facial rings.

ETA: Don't get me started on Quicksilver, I can talk all night. Real briefly--label troubles, tension between Dino and the rest of the lads, and a lotta lotta fucking drugs. One of my buddies is a friend of Gary Duncan, and another buddy (Barry Melton from Country Joe and the Fish) played with John in the Dinosaurs, when John died from emphysema. (Barry and I used to share Giants' tickets, until I got my own.)

Ah, so you've got some great stories. Some of them tragic. It takes a lot for some version of a successful band to keep going for more than a few years. So many moving parts. Management, money, women, personality clashes, fame-inflated egos, health -- those are universal pitfalls in the music business, pretty much forever. And any band that is starting up when drugs are peaking in the culture has an especially challenging path. That was true of Miles Davis's bands in the 50s, for example, not just the counter culture groups of the 60s and 70s. And of course, Charlie Parker's career was as fucked up as any careening rock and roller.

Was Barry Melton in the law business in Lake County, north of Napa?

howard · Post by **howard** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 2:08 am

Yeah, he is in the law business. He did not go to law school; just studied on his own and passed the California bar exam. He practiced in SF, then was the public defender for Yolo County (Davis and Woodland). When he left the public defender job, or sometime soon after, he bought a place up in Clear Lake and opened an office. The last few years I haven't spent much time out there, I haven't caught a game with him since the first world series year. Great guy, he has some stories. Shit, dude played at Woodstock.

Here is a recent article on Barry: http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/art ... 374495.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 8:36 am

Think this was actually their very first official release.

An auspicious debut.

govmentchedda · Post by **govmentchedda** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 11:34 am

Glad to see Doctor My Eyes posted here. Its release is before my time, but it's a great track. There's a great scene in the Eagles documentary where Don Henley talks about living above Jackson Browne and hearing him play the piano riff for Doctor My Eyes over and over again while writing it.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:03 am

DC47 wrote:

Just found this.

I really liked the video, then they showed a shot of Cafe Wha?, site of my first kiss with my wife. Although then she was the random girl I was grinding on, but it sounds more romantic the other way. Also the site of my parents date to see an unknown young comedian named Richard Pryor.

sancarlos · Post by **sancarlos** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 9:42 am

DC47 wrote:

Jackson Browne was well known before Doctor My Eyes, wasn't he?

rass · Post by **rass** » Sat May 09, 2020 6:19 pm

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Overwrought or under-appreciated?

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Sat May 09, 2020 8:31 pm

A bit droney but pretty much a masterpiece with regards to like, you know, words and stuff