How did we miss this? A reunion of the original Stray (or something like it) on November 16 at a venue in London! Did nobody bother to tell @JohnnyConcheroo ? Or @Twang ?
Let’s rock!
It’s Mardl Boehm! A Stray reunion in November 2016!
Johnny C’s ‘Sus chords: time for a reappraisal’ thread
No doubt non musos around here were baffled by Johnny C’s recent reference to ‘sus chords’. I don’t use the phrase myself (they’re suspended chords), but Australians (Aussies) are big on abbreviations (abbrevos?) e.g. barbies, tinnies, ‘this arvo’, etc…
So, having kicked the jargon into touch, let this man – ironically, an Australian – explain what such chords are and give examples. He does so very well. Once your brain has assimilated what they sound like, let us hear any great, or better still unusual, examples of the suspended chord in music.
Caveat: I’m banning all examples from The Who and U2 otherwise there’d be no room for anyone else.
I’ll allow the ‘honorary suspended chord’, the greatest example of which is probably ‘Alright Now’, which goes from A to a sort of D, but the sort of D sounds like a sort of A sus4.
Over to you…
Alexis Korner sends shockwaves through Johnny C’s world
I came across a 1978 MM interview with British blues godfather Alexis Korner recently and thought this quote might kick off an interesting discussion…
AK: ‘You have to keep moving and good music is always fluid music. that’s what I objected to in the Blues Boom (68-69). I objected to the 12-bars and five BB King licks as being the badge of the bluesman. That’s why I left the scene – there was far more to it than that. What about field hollers, work songs, gospel? It wasn’t down to 12 bars and three chords, and that’s why I split in 68. It had become a very bad joke and I didn’t want to be part of that movement I’d sooner play with jazz musicians who have a blues feel.’
So, @Johnny_Concheroo – what do say? Do you concede that, one or two original talents aside, a huge splodge of the British blues boom were meat & potatoes three-chord merchants with five or six borrowed licks? Or was Alexis missing something that ‘the kids’ were getting?
Attached is a great clip from German TV in 1978, featuring Alexis doing his kind of blues, then The Pirates, Dr Feelgood and Chicken » Continue Reading.
