From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V2 #42 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Tuesday, January 29 2002 Volume 02 : Number 042 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [loud-fans] RE: havana louie ["Brett Milano" ] Re: [loud-fans] RE: havana louie [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: [loud-fans] RE: havana louie Question: which came first: Richard Berry's "Louie Louie," or Chuck Berry's "Havana Moon"? the latter. Richard Berry said somewhere that Chuck Berry's song was the inspiration for "Louie Louie"....which ratchets Chuck's importance up a whole bunch of notches. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 00:03:30 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] RE: havana louie On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Brett Milano wrote: > Question: which came first: Richard Berry's "Louie Louie," or Chuck > Berry's "Havana Moon"? > > the latter. Richard Berry said somewhere that Chuck Berry's song was the > inspiration for "Louie Louie"....which ratchets Chuck's importance up a > whole bunch of notches. That's what I thought: it seems pretty clear that there's a relation between the songs (situation, dialect - even some specifics of the setting). Chuck is, of course, by far the better storyteller. - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::sex, drugs, revolt, Eskimos, atheism:: ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 00:41:52 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: [loud-fans] prog-out in progress For a number of reasons (as I think I mentioned), I've found reason to revisit some of my prog faves from the late seventies. Last week, I dismissed ELP w/fingers clamping my nostrils tight...of course, after having done so, and having checked out the _Return of the Manticore_ box set from the library, the temptation to actually listen to some of those old tracks was irresisible. The band rose a bit in my estimation...and fell some more, too. First off, that box set has about half an hour of new (in 1993) stuff: god it's awful. Superclean digital synths make Keith Emerson sound exactly like eveyrone else - and the uninventive arrangements, and Greg Lake's shot voice, make the new tracks quite barfworthy. No, I wasn't surprised. They studio-tracked, for the first time, their crapping all over _Pictures at an Exhibition_ - and what struck me was how many of Mussorgsky's lines, played by Emerson, sounded *so* Emerson...I hadn't really noticed what an influence M. was in terms of melodic structure, even the sorts of chords E. uses. (The other main influence on Emerson that I noted here was Broadway musicals - particularly _West Side Story_, which of course he covered, in parts, back w/The Nice.) However, what I'd forgotten is that when they put their minds to it, they could actually write a decent song - sometimes even quite a pretty one. The high-water mark is probably "Trilogy": a lovely melody that, for once, is actually *developed* in the subsequent sections (rather than having the track be extended by blatantly obvious cut-n-paste methods - amazing how blunt and clumsy some of those edits are...). "The Endless Enigma" isn't half-bad either. What surprised me - in a genre whose proponents are often evaluated on their technique - is how sloppy the playing on those recordings is (those edits are only one example of that sloppiness). Emerson has a lousy sense of tempo; he often rushes and gets ahead of everyone else: I couldn't believe how loose many supposedly unison passages were. Prog, of course, is infamous for throwing up needless barriers in the way of musicians (why play in 4/4 - hell, why play in 7/16 - when instead, you can play in 7/16 for three bars and then 11/16 every fourth bar!), but if that's your game, you'd better learn how to play it. In comparison with Yes, ELP just couldn't cut it, no matter how fast Emerson could pay those runs. Compare, for example, the middle section of Yes's "Gates of Delirium": this is an insanely complicated piece of music rhythmically - and yet, because of the performances, it feels right: the music is jagged and offputting, but that seems to be the intent). In the opening of this section, there's a radical ambiguity as to whether we're in a beat composed of duple or triple eighth-notes (they actually switch back and forth several times - adding to the headlong rush of the section). And they're freakin' *fast* eighth-notes, too! After a few minutes of this tripping-over-one's-own-feet rhythm shifts, we go to a section built on a bass riff. You thought the first part was rhythmically tricky? Check this out: as near as I can tell, the lick here is in a 21-beat cycle of very rapid 8th notes: a 3-beat intro, an 8-beat bar, and two 5-beat bars (the whole divides further into 11 + 10). Against that, Steve Howe adds some discordant caterwauling that seems to completely ignore the beat (but doesn't). Oh - and then every few bars, the bass riff breaks up for a hammering part in yet another rhythm: 5 beats, 6 beats, 9 beats (20 total). After this section, there's a furious braking, like a subway car screeching to a halt...and finally we go into a relatively subdued section at half the pace, in a sedate, easy-to-count 11/8 (!) Everything is executed perfectly - no flatulent scattered landings of flailing musicians. Plus, a couple minutes in, someone (Squire? Howe?) lets out a yelp that sounds like pure exultation. I get the feeling ELP were way too busy cramming notes beneath their fingers and making serious statements to ever let loose like that. (Except when they did...and produced awful dreck like "Are You Ready Eddy?" Filler, thy name is short ELP tracks...) This is too long...but a few words about Genesis in response to some folks' remarks. Yeah, the voices on "Epping Forest" are annoying...but other tracks on that album display typical virtues of Gabriel-era Genesis: rich yet delicate and transparent arrangement, and a certain cynical wit that prevents even the most seemingly pretentious ideas from going too overboard. Curious note: I read a review of _Selling England by the Pound_ that mentioned Gabriel's having read a lot of T.S. Eliot at the time; the critic claimed that influence was legible in the lyrics to some of the tracks here, particularly "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight." Normally, I'd sort of dismiss that kind of remark...but you know, I knew the Genesis album before I knew T.S. Eliot - and I remember the first time I read _The Waste Land_ thinking, "hey - something about this reminds me of Genesis lyrics..." (Resemblance or influene, of course, does not equal merit or quality: not even Gabriel at his most ego-ridden would presume so, I don't think.) - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::Some see things as they are, and say "Why?" ::Some see things as they could be, and say "Why not?" ::Some see things that aren't there, and say "Huh?" ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V2 #42 ******************************