Twang welcomes Tiggerlion to the pod for a one to one taking in his lifelong love of music in almost all its forms (though our guest admits he hasn’t found the metal album he likes….yet). In a discussion ranging from The Beatles to Eminem via Miles, Coltrane and Lana Del Rey, Twang leaves with a list of actions of stuff he should have heard of. A playlist of the vast span of music Tig recommended is in the comments.
If you fancy joining Twang in the pod for a 121 natter, PM forthwith!
Dig in here!
Very much looking forward to the lengthy section on Appetite For Destruction.
Oops!
“Clean Up Woman”.
I love you.
That is a fine playlist.
Listening to those Fats Waller tracks, his playing is tremendous. Such a tender touch. My ambition to play like him is hopeless (I’ve had two lessons!).
The track I was thinking of with the long introduction wasn’t Feets. It was Ain’t Misbehavin’.
https://youtu.be/EtfXnwi_Njo
That made a nice change from all the Brexit bluster that I usually tune into driving back from work. Tig is a natural raconteur and his enthusiasm for music is infectious – might even tempt Twang to listen to Kendrick Lamar (and I would like to be the fly on wall for that).
I tried him ages ago. Absolutely dreadful. OOAA.
To Pimp A Butterfly is a genuinely classic album and that’s from me, who really struggles with “hip-hop” generally.
Ah. That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me. Thank you.
Meanwhile, @Twang, just give The Blacker The Berry a whirl.
That was fun.
@Twang need to take an issue with your comments about Beatles lyrics. Not true at all. The mostly McCartney penned Eleanor Rigby is indeed an example but there are dozens of other examples. From pop perfection to drug influenced profundity. A few from the top of my head:
There’s a Place
She Loves You (yeah!)
A Hard Day’s Night
I’ll Be Back
Help!
Ticket to Ride (Ryde)
In My Life
Norwegian Wood
Day Tripper
Paperback Writer
Strawberry Fields Forever
Penny Lane
A Day in the Life etc etc
My mind went almost blank at that point. I don’t pay that much attention to lyrics at the best of times. However, that was when we were discussing Beatles v Stones and it has to be admitted The Stones win hands down. My head was full of Satisfaction, Paint It Black, Get Off My Cloud, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Sympathy For The Devil, Street Fighting Man, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, etc., etc., etc.,
Jagger is a great lyricist, not sure he’s better than Lennon. Let’s call it a draw. Ray Davies is the greatest though (from that era)
Yes agree, he’s a proper lyricist not, someone thinking of some words that go with the tune they just wrote.
Based on that post I am Stones and not Beatles!
Reasons why I prefer The Beatles:
They had multiple perspectives. (I can barely tell the difference between Jagger and Richards songs.)
They were really well connected to the most powerful, most important pop audience -the teenage girl.
There was a focus on songwriting from the start.
They had a laugh. Lots of musical jokes. Lots of fun. They sounded as though they enjoyed making music together right to the end.
Totally committed. Even when being ridiculous. Just listen to the singing.
They were a proper group without a weak link.
They cared about every aspect of the record. They make every moment count.
Consistent high quality. Less than a dozen poor performances out of more than 132 studio tracks.
They stopped before people grew tired of them.
Most importantly, they had charm and catchiness.
See also Johnny Hates Jazz.
And all those other groups using The Beatles as their template.
Mind you, I don’t remember thinking, “Oasis seem to be having fun!”
132? More than 200.
I think my point was if you’re not bought in to the whole “Beatles are perfect” thing it’s clear they could be musically innovative (ignoring the pastiche stuff they regularly dropped into) and melodically/harmonically brilliant but their lyrics are never more than workable.
“Never more than workable”. Never? Yes they were unremarkable earlier on for the most part but my God there’s loads of examples of extraordinary writing by the standards of other pop/rock writers. So many. Often better than The Stones managed, though they had their moments now and again – Sympathy for the Devil for one. She’s Leaving Home – I mean come on. Then there’s all the nonsense/surreal word play stuff. We Can Work It Out. Those listed above etc etc.
I’ve listened to this the required six times now and enjoyable as it undoubtedly is I must say that on the whole I much preferred Twang’s earlier work, the stuff before he started challenging his paradigm where he shoehorned mentions of Jethro Tull into conversations that by no stretch of the imagination one would have thought it possible that Aqualung could have any possible connection to the subject or topic under discussion.
I miss that guy. I blame Tigg.
I know, I feel ashamed. It would have been so easy too. I’m not pod fit after the summer.
….”he started challenging his paradigm” – well, I hope he drew the blinds first.
On Tull. Has someone seen / reviewed Martin Barre’s Tull show. He is down here soon and I’m considering it
Yes, we saw Martin Barre at Cropredy. I’m not the biggest Tull fan, but I enjoyed it. He runs through the albums chronologically, but it sort of petered out later in the story – I suspect the show will be longer in a theatre. Note – no flute, which is a bit odd, and the singer does pull Anderson faces a bit.
Hello Pencil.
Great to see you!
*Mwah*
*waves*
Lovely listen guys. Lots of fab music/pop culture analysis, great stories and Tig’s joy in music and so much else shone through. I hope you will repeat the babysitting Motown- and- dance sessions with your grandkids, Tig – sounds like such fun. If there is ever an AW Strictly Come Dancing you will ace it with your tango skills. Well done on starting to learn piano – lots to achieve like reading music and coordinating both hands together for a start!
Thank you so much.
In fact, I’ve just spent a happy hour bouncing round the kitchen to T.Rex and The Supremes with an 8 month old. She loves T.Rex. As for serious dancing, my tricompartmental ankle fracture ten years ago has put paid to that. I can still dance slow, real slow, as The Shangri-Las might have said.
My piano teacher has just sent me sheets of random notes for me to identify! It’ll take me a while.
Serious dancing? Does that mean the Argie tango as you mentioned in the podcast, or the more classical Little-fish->Big-fish->Cardboard-box?
You’ve acquired the sheet music for Lou’s MMM?
*whispers* they’re in alphabetical order.
This is a reply to tiggs post. I can read music but I can’t post properly on a forum.
Yeah. He wants me to be able to say, “that’s A, then G, then B#….” Without counting on my fingers. Then, match them to a key on the piano.
When things go wrong, I tell myself I could always randomly skronk. MMM is another option.
“Away with your pentatonic straitjacket, this is the New Thing, daddio!”
“You do realise you’re blowing into a rolled-up umbrella?”
To remember the Treble Clef notes, back in my day it was Every Good Boy Deserves Favours (they may have fazed this one out in these times, though Donald Trump seems to believe it in his Ukraine request) and FACE as in F-A-C-E. Good luck! Glad you are still able to bounce around to T Rex with your granddaughter despite ankle injury.
Yes, those are the mnemonics. The trouble is they start from the bottom & go up, like reading backwards. Does my head in. I think I’m better off skipping through the alphabet.
Can you play Ain’t Misbavin’ @Carolina?
Having looked at some sheet music, I could give it a go, though the jumping bass is a bit of a challenge. I would need to do it v slowly like your dancing. All I need now is a piano!
An Ipad can convert to a keyboard!
Very cramped on my mini ipad though!
Pretend it’s a Casio VL-Tone
Fuck it I love you. Mmmmm. Oh yes!
I took that as a particularly enthusiastic response to Tig’s one-to-one before I remembered about the Lana Del Rey number.
If only…
I don’t know if this is the right place to post this but I’m really enjoying Coltrane’s Blue World. It’s the great quartet (Garrison, Jones, Tyner) recording for a film soundtrack in 1964 between Crescent and A Love Supreme. Garrison was a mate of the director. There’s one new tune but the others reach back into Coltrane’s back catalogue to music performed before the quartet formed. For the purposes of the soundtrack, they restrained themselves and kept it simple, just as they did when they backed Johnny Hartman. It’s quite a contrast to Both Directions At Once, released last year and recorded in 1963, where they are their most complex and exploratory, but it is still wonderful.
A lovely chat….we must have a pint sometime! My only beef – I reckon peak Brian Jones was 1966 rather than 1965 – Aftermath, Paint It Black, Ruby Tuesday…?
Thank you. We must.
To be fair, I was toying with 1964. I love Little Red Rooster. But he is brilliant on Aftermath and those singles. Let’s say 1964-1966. Probably The Stones at their peak.
I always think of that series of Guy Peellaert paintings in Rock Dreams where one member disappears in succession. Brian’s contribution is underrated because of his decline and death, as well as the band effectively reinventing themselves in the Mick Taylor period which has somehow made the pre-1968 years a sort of historical curiosity to be only now occasionally revisited. I recall the first time I saw them in 1973 – they didn’t perform one song from before Beggar’s Banquet/Jumping Jack Flash. Even JJF and, say, Street Fighting Man, are performed without the beautiful touches he added.
I always think of Jimi as being the most gifted guitarist in my lifetime but Brian may well have been the most gifted musician. He could turn his hand to almost anything, outclassing George on sitar easily. He suffers from a bad rep because of his behaviour towards women and because he was a junkie. Such beautiful music came from such a dreadful person. Mind you, as I say in the cast, Keef is no angel.
I saw the Stones around the same time as you. I think they did Under My Thumb.
He wasn’t much of a guitarist, in truth. My favourite Stones album is “Sticky Fingers” which is perfect and the best Stones lineup – the combination of Mick Taylor’s lyricism and Keef’s groove is fantastic.
Sticky Fingers is undoubtedly the definitive Stones Rock album. The Brian era was when they were what used to be called Rhythm & Blues.
Agreed.
Been a while since I’ve played this, but I think I remember it was you, Tiggs, who observed that Lana Del Rey has some trouble pronouncing the word “love” during your remote psychoanalysis. Not hearing it so much with these ears, but now, of course, I’m paying attention to everyone, and I find it really jarring on this mighty tune at about the 2:00 mark when Weyes Blood tries to sing the word like it’s one she’s never heard before
(Drugdealer/Weyes Blood – Honey)
Yes, ’twas me. Though Lana does seem to properly ‘love’ her bartender.
Here’s Burial’s Rival Dealer, an extraordinary track, one of the best of the century in my view, which samples a line including the word ‘love’. He distorts everything around it rather than the line itself. It’s most unsettling.
Following your recommendation Tig I have properly investigated this album and have passed out on to a few mates who love it too. So thanks!
That’s great news. I think it’s a shoe-in for album of the year. However, FKA Twigs might be about to release her own masterpiece in a couple of weeks. 😉