Life-Changing Bands (or Songs)

“Navajo Rug” by Ian Tyson. I think Tom Russell wrote it. I first heard it sung by a local performer in Dubois, Wyoming. That song inspired me to get more into playing the guitar. I learned that song, played it a few times every day, learned others, and often played for a couple hours every night.

Over the last couple years I really got away from playing. But the other day I picked up the guitar and played Navajo Rug like I’d never taken a day off.
 
Bob Stane was co-owner of the Ice House in Pasadena CA, the night club where so many music legends got their start. In later years Bob owned and operated the Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena CA, a tiny room behind a nondescript suburban coffee house, where the tradition continued. Little-known and well-known talent alike performed nightly in the Coffee Gallery Backstage.

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Bob has recently had some health issues, and though he is on the road to recovery, it was announced last week that the Coffee Gallery Backstage has closed permanently.

Folksinger and songwriter Art Podell has penned this lovely tribute: https://folkworks.org/the-mics-are-silent-and-the-lights-are-off/
 
Thread back to life! It's been a busy summer so far, there are a ton of bands touring again and they all seem to be passing through here.

Bad Cop Bad Cop has been on my must-see list since I lived near Bottom of the Hill :D Finally caught them in STL and they were as good as I'd heard.

I've already covered Man...or Astro-Man? in the thread a few times but I managed to catch them again, second time in less than a year. The show was much better this time, the theremin worked and didn't have to be destroyed, and it was only a tiny electrical fire onstage.
A couple of EDM acts (their roadies :) ) opened and were more interesting than I'm willing to admit in person.

Pokey Lafarge was well-attended and put on an excellent show.
I was just as impressed with the Vanilla Ice lookalike a few seats down from me who looked like he was in for a disappointment but when the band started he jumped into the aisle and danced for the entire set. Wish I had the energy if not the hip hop moves.

Somewhere in this mess Frank Turner opened for The Interrupters - I wasn't really looking forward to him but he and The Sleeping Souls killed their set. I'd see them again, given the opportunity.
The Interrupters held up their end of the bargain but I expected that :cool:

LTJ, Mustard Plug, and another round of Agent Orange are next in the queue.

Nauga,
and the punk rock matinee
 
Half Fast said:
For fans of Robert Fripp and King Crimson,....

Click to expand...

Guess Fripp is making up for his 20s to 50s being overly serious. Bill Bruford said that when he joined KC, it wasn't a list of songs given to him to learn but rather a list of books to read. Also, unlike in Yes, there weren't any discussions about whether they play this chord or that scale or that beat..."you just had to know".
 
ELO's Out of the Blue started my enjoyment of music when I was young, it was the very first album I ever bought - still have it to this day. I have always loved the mix of rock, disco, and orchestral themes ... They showed me what music could be.

This is the song that started it for me :D



Then my teenage years I kinda fell hard into the Beastie Boys and again like ELO have those albums and cd's to this day. It's the mix again that appeals to me, rock, rap, and punk sorta makes me move. This is the music that speaks to me, this is the stuff that makes your soul sing ...

My favorite version of this song from the Glasgow concert.



Finally nowadays whilst I still have ELO and the Beasties in almost every playlist I have on Spotify (and I will until I die lol) I've found I really like finding covers of favorite songs and the new take/twist on old favorites ...





 
SoonerAviator said:
@FastEddieB posted a song by James McMurtry that reminded me of a song I always liked from him called Choctaw Bingo.
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Interesting case of “synchronicity“…

I was on a motorcycle ride along the Natchez Trace Parkway. I heard a VERY fun and interesting song on my XMRadio, and pulled over to find it was “Choctaw Bingo”. Looked up to see a sign for something Choctaw related, though I can’t remember exactly what. What are the chances?

www.nps.gov

American Indian History - Natchez Trace Parkway (U.S. National Park Service)

American Indian History
www.nps.gov www.nps.gov

I love this verse. I’ll bet not many folks know what Berdan primers are!

And he stopped off in Tushka at that "Pop's Knife and Gun" place
Bought a SKS rifle and a couple a full cases of that steel core ammo
With the berdan primers from some East bloc nation that no longer needs 'em
And a Desert Eagle that's one great big ol' pistol
I mean .50 caliber made by badass Hebrews
And some surplus tracers for that old BAR of Slayton's
Soon as it gets dark we're gonna have us a time
We're gonna have us a time
 
DC has always had a pretty good music scene, with the usual ebb and flow. Mid to late '90s produced a bunch of my favorites.
An original:

and a cover, much (MUCH) better than the original:

Nauga,
with The Bad Brains, Chuck Brown, and Cool "Disco" Dan
 
FastEddieB said:
I’ll bet not many folks know what Berdan primers are!
Click to expand...


Those of us who shoot surplus Russian ammo had better!

After shooting my Mosin Nagant rifles I have to clean the bores with ammonia to neutralize the salts. A soak with window cleaner containing ammonia works pretty well before the Hoppes scrub.
 
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Half Fast said:
Those of us who shoot surplus Russian ammo had better!

After shooting my Mosin Nagant rifles I have to clean the bores with ammonia to neutralize the salts. A soak with window cleaner containing ammonia works pretty well before the Hoppes scrub.
Click to expand...
Coworker of mine has some old Russian equivalent to a 50-cal that has ammo painted with a red laquer that apparently is fairly corrosive and the gun pretty much has to be cleaned after every outing.
 
FastEddieB said:
Interesting case of “synchronicity“…

I was on a motorcycle ride along the Natchez Trace Parkway. I heard a VERY fun and interesting song on my XMRadio, and pulled over to find it was “Choctaw Bingo”. Looked up to see a sign for something Choctaw related, though I can’t remember exactly what. What are the chances?

www.nps.gov

American Indian History - Natchez Trace Parkway (U.S. National Park Service)

American Indian History
www.nps.gov www.nps.gov

I love this verse. I’ll bet not many folks know what Berdan primers are!

And he stopped off in Tushka at that "Pop's Knife and Gun" place
Bought a SKS rifle and a couple a full cases of that steel core ammo
With the berdan primers from some East bloc nation that no longer needs 'em
And a Desert Eagle that's one great big ol' pistol
I mean .50 caliber made by badass Hebrews
And some surplus tracers for that old BAR of Slayton's
Soon as it gets dark we're gonna have us a time
We're gonna have us a time
Click to expand...
Obviously has a lot of ties to OK and TX with it's references. Small map-dot towns like Tushka, the "World's Largest McDonalds" over I-44 at the Vinita exit, and the Shawnee Bypass are places I've been through many times. It's a catchy song, but has just enough relation to people and/or experiences I can relate with to feel personal, lol. Definitely some eyebrow-raising phrases in there with the crystal meth and 2nd cousins . . .
 
Half Fast said:
Those of us who shoot surplus Russian ammo had better!

After shooting my Mosin Nagant rifles I have to clean the bores with ammonia to neutralize the salts. A soak with window cleaner containing ammonia works pretty well before the Hoppes scrub.
Click to expand...
breaking a de-priming pin will give you a clue, too.
 
Went down to OKC for the weekend for my wife's birthday to see Manchester Orchestra and Jimmy Eat World play at a decent medium-sized venue called The Criterion. Manchester still puts on a heck of a rock show. Jimmy Eat World has been playing for about 30 years now, and is very polished as well. We had VIP balcony seats (didn't feel like standing room only on the bottom level as 40-yr-olds, lol) and view/sound was great as we are right about the drummer's knuckles in the attached pic. Definitely worth seeing live, although I would have loved to see them play at Red Rocks a few weeks ago just for the venue alone.

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I've been getting into a bit of an off-brand jazz thing lately. I saw the Glenn Miller Orchestra a few months ago, then a few small-town combos including a Django Reinhardt tribute in Lahaina a couple of weeks ago. :(
It's nice to enjoy something a little less 'thrashy' from time to time.

I'll be back in form shortly, what with The Copyrights, Agent Orange, and Mustard Plug moving within reach soon.

Nauga,
and a little gypsy jazz
 
Not life changing, but it made my week better. I flipped on Youtube a couple of weeks ago and it popped up with my favorite Jackson Browne song. So I'm listening for a bit, and it occurred to me "hey, that's not Jackson Browne..."


Long story short, Los Lobos made an album "Native Sons", dedicated to fellow musicians from California and that Jackson Browne cover is one of the tracks.

Nobody really needs to read "Lord of the Flies", but I think everybody should listen to this song.
 
Not life changing because of the song, but what was going on when I heard it:

Parthenon Huxley- "Guest Host For The Holy Ghost."
 
Albany Tom said:
Not life changing, but it made my week better. I flipped on Youtube a couple of weeks ago and it popped up with my favorite Jackson Browne song. So I'm listening for a bit, and it occurred to me "hey, that's not Jackson Browne..."


Long story short, Los Lobos made an album "Native Sons", dedicated to fellow musicians from California and that Jackson Browne cover is one of the tracks.

Nobody really needs to read "Lord of the Flies", but I think everybody should listen to this song.
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A lesser-known Cali musician (and his wife) did a whole series during the Covid-era where they paired up with random strangers via video feeds and composed songs with fellow artists/producers all without being together in-person, using stories or facts about that stranger's life. They would generate these songs over a very short duration, complete with album art, and then present them to the random strangers/viewing public. Johnnyswim is his internet handle and the series was called "Songs With Strangers". One of the people he collaborated with was a woman who had lost her husband suddenly, but had kept her faith in God. That woman was an acquaintance of my wife, so my wife was in tears watching the whole thing unfold. Very cool concept and talented group of musicians/producers.

 
And now for something completely different.

Somewhere around 8th grade, I learned of the Little Fugue quite by accident, of all things, through a piece of MIDI software. It stuck with me.

A few years later, around senior year, I read Gödel, Escher, Bach and eventually bought a copy of the Musical Offering.

Maybe fifteen years later, the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Goldberg Variations got me through a graduate degree.

Another fifteen years brings us to the present day, when a colleague mentioned

https://www.thelightherder.com/

and a friend pointed me to


, both of which snapped me back immediately to the Musical Offering, which I hadn't listened to in years. A quick search revealed this visually clever set of videos:

 
A few things old friends I've long since lost touch with introduced me to.

Fleetwood Mac, back when they were good. Hard to believe this is the same band that released "Gypsy."

Buzzcocks. One of the most influential bands you've probably heard of but don't remember when or where.

...and then Magazine, which spun out of Buzzcocks before the above song was released. I like this live version of this song better than the studio recording.

The movie this video was pulled from ("Urgh! A Music War") is really good window into the late '70s 'death' of punk and the emergence of new wave and is my favorite concert film.

John Cooper Clarke's "Health Fanatic" is another favorite from Urgh.

Nauga,
who rode a dinosaur to school
 
nauga said:
Buzzcocks. One of the most influential bands you've probably heard of but don't remember when or where.
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Hey, I resemble that remark! I put this very song on a mix CD as a not-too-subtle hint to a girl I liked who was with a friend of mine at the time (but was cheating on her).

We saw them together at the Black Cat in DC (rip Pete Shelley :(). Then we got married. And had a kid.

But yes, they wrote a good song or two ;)

 
nauga said:
Thread back to life! It's been a busy summer so far, there are a ton of bands touring again and they all seem to be passing through here.


Somewhere in this mess Frank Turner opened for The Interrupters - I wasn't really looking forward to him but he and The Sleeping Souls killed their set. I'd see them again, given the opportunity.
The Interrupters held up their end of the bargain but I expected that :cool:

LTJ, Mustard Plug, and another round of Agent Orange are next in the queue.

Nauga,
and the punk rock matinee
Click to expand...

My wife LOVES Frank Turner ever since we saw him open for Jason Isbell. I'm not a huge fan of his music, but he is great live.

The Interrupters are awesome as well, my wife became a fan of them when we saw them open for Frank.
 
Alice in Chains has some really really powerful, raw songs. The opening riffs on the Jar of Flies albums gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. And it's hard to not feel a little emotional listening to Nutshell.


Rooster is written about Jerry Cantrell's father who was a Vietnam veteran and suffered from PTSD.

 
Growing up in an area that only had radio stations that played either both kinds of music 'country AND western', or Skynard 24-7, hearing Nirvana for the first time was eye opening.

Pixies - Cactus
Produced by Steve Albini, so the sound is a little more raw. Which was perfect for the Pixies. The Bowie cover is pretty good, too

Kim Deal's voice is perfect on Safari.
 
Not life changing, but an instrumental version I like. Just learned the other day that the "session guy" playing standup bass is the bass player from Metallica.

 
I think I posted something by the Dex Romweber Duo back when drummer/sister Sara passed away. Dex died last week, which has got me crawling through the Flat Duo Jets and DR Duo's catalogs again.


Nauga,
twangy
 
Albany Tom said:
Not life changing, but an instrumental version I like. Just learned the other day that the "session guy" playing standup bass is the bass player from Metallica.

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Nickel Creek is a highly underrated band. Fantastic instrumental talent combined with great harmonies as well.
 
Sometimes I just don't want to hear anyone yelling at me.

The Mag Seven is close behind The Dillinger Four in non-sequitor song names. "Put the Lotion in the Basket" is a good title but it's no "Honey, I **** in the Hot Tub"

My neighbors in Oakland were not a fan of Kinski, but I still am.

Daikaiju is touring again (still?). Last time they passed through I couldn't make it but I'm keeping an eye out. Live shows are good by all reports.

Nauga,
and those Zappa albums
 
Went back down the ska rabbit hole and remembered a song that was played a lot locally. Local band band from the next town over. Remember working on the race car late at night when I was a freshman in high school. The local station had a battle of the bands style segment and this won out for several weeks.

 
Not life-changing by any means, but Gunship is awesome and this video is simply amazing (and a bit apropros for this board)
 
I've always had a thing for surf music, probably semi-related to my love for ska. I converted my wife by dragging her to see Dick Dale in a tiny club in Oakland not long before he died. It's been a pretty dry spell around here for my kind of live music so I've been wearing black and hanging around jazz clubs but when surf music calls, I need to answer. Two from Santa Cruz who are worth a trip:

The Mermen (who aren't all men, but never mind that)

The Expendables

Nauga,
outside, bruddah!
 
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