-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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Carrack, by the way, was also known in other contexts. He was a member and lead singer of the band Ace, who scored a hit with "How Long?" in the '70s. After his brief tenure in Squeeze (1981-82), he had solo hits with "I Need You" (1982) and "Don't Shed a Tear" (1987. He was a member of Mike + the Mechanics and sang lead on "Silent Running" (1985) and "The Living Years" (1989).
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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Okay, I gotta admit that as a kid I liked music, but other than one or two bands like Zep, i couldn't have identified members of bands with a gun to my head. Its great learning all this stuff here.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
I spent my youth memorizing rock encyclopedias and learning the histories of most bands, whether I liked their music or not or whether I'd even heard their music or not.
(My personal favorite was Fairport Convention, a Brit folk rock band whose music I'd never heard until around 2002 -- but whose history of personnel changes, hard luck, and near brushes with success is just so darn fascinating.
I managed to pick up two of their mid-'70s albums -- Rising For the Moon and Gottle O' Geer, both recorded during a period when the band had high hopes that didn't materialize. Half the band on Moon left before Geer! Nevertheless, both albums are worth listening to.)
There's something about the history of rock 'n' roll that transcends the appeal of particular artists. You see connections through musicians who leave one band and join another. You see how the music was influenced by other events going on in the world, and how the music, in turn, shaped other events. And you realize how interconnected a lot of things, both in and out of music, are.
And then you get to talk about this stuff 30 years later on a comic book message board.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
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When I was buying box sets of classic artists back in the early 90s, when I was first really getting into music, they'd often include band geneologies with them. The funny thing is that I'd often have no concept of the relative popularity or success of various bands listed in these charts, which led to me seeking out some fairly obscure stuff early on in my music listening career. Then there's stuff like Mogul Thrash, that I've had filed as a "need to hear" in brain for so many years, but have only gotten to listen to in the past couple of years thanks to Youtube.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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One of my favorite books is Pete Frame's Rock Family Trees, first published in 1979 and containing charts that display the connections of various bands such as Jefferson Airplane, Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac, ELO, and, yes, Fairport. Each chart is full of minutiae and interviews. A must-have for rock band geeks.
And, yes, YouTube is a wonderful resource.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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Oh man, I've learned more about some bands from the seventies through youtube. away from all the shots of guys getting hit in the groin, and that same sad chick posing on the couch in multicolored leggins trying to be all profound and crap, it has facinating musical groups and histories as well as interviews.
I bet there could easily be a class on it in college under the media and communications genre.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
posted
My community college offered a course in rock music history last summer. I would have loved to have taken it, but I was teaching a class at that time.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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