Mudhoney–You’re Gone

Mudhoney-You’re Gone

This is definitely one of Mudhoney’s best songs, worthy of being on Superfuzz Bigmuff, but for some reason it was only released on vinyl. Definitely needs to be released on CD/mp3!

Neil Young does New Wave Vocoder Postpunk Circa 1982–Sample and Hold (live, Berlin 1982); Neil Young and Devo–Human Highway

Neil Young–Sample and Hold (live, Berlin 1982)
Awesome! From the album Trans from 1982. Way before the band Trans Am from the 1990s, Neil Young in 1982 busted out the vocoders and made Styx-Roboto-like new wave postpunk music with guitars, drums, bass, and vocoders!!! He was friends with Devo in the late 70s/1980s, I wonder if any of that influenced his robotic excursions on his “Trans” album.” Viva la 80s!!!

Here’s a trailer of the film “Human Highway” starring Neil Young and Devo!!!

Human Highway Trailer (Neil Young and Devo)

David Essex–Rock On: Crazy 1970s Minimalistic Psychadelic Funk Rock

David Essex–Rock On

Yo, what’s up with this song–David Essex. It’s crazy good–catchy, minimalistic, funky, psychadelic. It’s like a weird distillation of rock and roll without noticeable guitars or typical rock drums! It’s aggressive and full of rock swagger, with catchy rhyming lyrics almost like a precursor to rap or 90s/00s pop,yet super mellowly soulful and quietly funky at the same time. It’s clearly rock, classic rock, glam rock, but funk and soul too. I think JDilla samples it on Jay Stay Paid, I’ll have to check it out to make sure. But it sure sounds futuristic and hip hop worthy, maybe the best mixture of rock and soul and funk ever, as it’s so pure and distilled/minimalistic and futuristic for 1973. I hear Def Leppard covered it later, it’s an obvious influence for their rhyming, catchy lyrics on songs like “Rock of Ages.” Though obviously “Rock On” is way, way, way, way, way, way, way better, without all the cheese.

Def Leppard–Rock of Ages

David Bowie: Moonage Daydream, I’m Only Dancing, Let’s Dance, Ashes to Ashes

Ah, David Bowie…check out the videos below. Defining moments of the 1970s and 1980s…

David Bowie–Moonage Daydream

Embedding has been disabled on the below videos, so you’ll have to click the lower-right corner of the youtube window in each of the videos to view the videos on youtube.com…

David Bowie–John I’m Only Dancing

David Bowie–Let’s Dance

David Bowie–Ashes to Ashes

ZZ Top and Aerosmith Tour 2009

WHOA…Summer 2009 ZZ Top and Aerosmith tour! There is no way I am going to miss this…I can’t think of anything more rock and roll, frankly…

OMG the Google overlay ad text for this ZZ Top video right now reads “Vaporize Your Herb”

Mahavishnu Orchestra: Live at Montreux 1974/1984 DVD: Surprisingly Awesome!

I’ve always been a huge fan of the Mahavishnu Orcehstra’s first two albums, Inner Mounting Flame and Birds of Fire, and just recently realized how amazing their third album is, Visions of the Emerald Beyond.  For more context, I think the track Devotion on John McLaughlin’s 1970s solo album Devotion is amazing, as are his When Fortune Smiles and Extrapolation albums, and the Tony Williams Lifetime albums on which he plays guitar.  I will now have to pull out the Apocalypse album to see if I like it as much as I like Visions of the Emerald Beyond (which I like better than the Lost Trident Sessions–they messed up on the mixing of the Trident Sessions big time, it sounds like too contemporary of a mix/too digital/fake, what’s with the weird drum placement in the mix, maybe the guitars stand out too much if I remember correctly, they should remix that album to sound more like the mix of all the other 70s Mahavishnu albums).

I could do without the sixth or seventh Mahavishnu Orchestra album Inner Worlds, which features lots of bland weird 70s hippie R&B cult ballads–he really should have dropped the name Mahavishnu Orchestra for that album.  John McLaughlin’s Electric Dreams album in the late 1970s is very bland to my ears (oh, actually I like some of it as I’m listening to it more!), and his early 80s album Mahavishnu really blows too.

The Mahavishnu 80s album is like Herbie Hancock’s Rockit mixed with the Main Street Electrical Parade mixed with muzak, which might sound good in concept, but here it’s totally devoid of any funk, hard edged rock touches,  or even any electric guitar solos (on an album with John McLaughlin???)–and filled with tons of terrible, awful bad 1980s synth sounds (as opposed to good 1980s synth sounds, which do exist elsewhere in the universe, just not on the 1980s Mahavishnu album).  There’s like 10 seconds of actual electric guitar on Radioactivity…the rest sounds like some bad Sega video game synth-guitar farting noises…in an elevator…in a Nordstroms…opening out into the section with the perfume counters and the lingerie section…in Moraga…bland, bland, bland, yuck, yuck, yuck.

But here’s the thing…the 1984 Mahavishnu band playing the Mahavishnu songs on the 1984 disc of the Live at Montreux DVD set rocks!  I mean, John does play the synth guitar, but he also pulls out his real electric guitar too (he will literally take one off and puts the other on all during the same song) in equal measure, and plays some of the best electric guitar solos he is capable of playing, all caught on great looking and sounding footage.  There’s awesome feedback on the first song, and he does this awesome hammer on hammer off stuff or something, it’s kind of like John McLaughlin meets Van Halen or something.

The band actually rocks, it’s weird, the Mahavishnu 80′s album is so bland, and there are some cheesy moments on the 1984 DVD too, but all of the musicians really shine.  The keyboardist breaks out his Rhodes sometimes, and plays this really amazing Rhodes solo.  The bassist plays this Jimi Hendrix song on his bass, the drummer and saxophonist do their thing.  Too bad they didn’t play like this for the album!!!  It kind of reminds me of a really good night at Yoshis or something…kind of cheesy, just edging into adult contemporary, but really good too.  ; )  Is this show the beginning of that kind of “Yoshis” rock?  Oh, and what’s that amazing low pitched sound John McLaughlin gets in that one part on his synth guitar, he should have used that more…

The 1974 show is awesome as well.  It’s MO II, with the lady, the other drummer, the other bassist (I should probably know all this, Narada Walden Smith or something, Ralph something maybe, Gayle Moran maybe, too lazy to look it up) and the awesome Jean Luc Ponty.  The playing is really fantastic.  Only maybe half of the show has video–but that’s still a good 74 minutes or so of great video!

I’m going to be seeing the John McLaughlin/Chick Corea Five Peace Band soon, and I really, really like John McLaughlin’s Floating Point album–it’s awesome, he plays synth guitar and killer electric guitar in equal measures here too, with awesome songs and solos, and the drums are crazy.  The drums are like real prog rock/jazz fusion drums in the style of Billy Cobham and Bill Bruford in their heydays, but there are two drummers, from India, and it’s cacophonous in a good way, almost like good drum and bass in parts–John McLaughlin and a keyboardist will be playing these relaxing synth parts but the drummers wil be making this incredible racket in the background, it makes for a great contrast and is kind of unlike anything I’ve ever heard before, drum-wise.  With all of this great material and touring coming out it’s a great time to be a John McLaughlin and Mahavishnu Orchestra fan, thanks John McLaughlin!

Screen cap from All About Jazz

Mahavishnu Orchestra–Visions of the Emerald Beyond, Live Skull–Positraction: Two Underrated Records By Great Bands

Mahavishnu Orchestra–Visions of the Emerald Beyond and Live Skull–Positraction: these are both late  period records by these two bands, and I have typically preferred their harsher, rawer, earlier records.  However, I just realized that not only are these records very good, they’re sort of masterpieces in their own rights–they’re both very, very good.  Just a bit different from their earlier stuff.

Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Visions of the Emerald Beyond is very much looser, and larger in scope than earlier Mahavishnu–it’s quite an atmospheric and expansive record, not all heavy prog/math rock like their earlier stuff.  There’s crazy stuff going on, but on such a large and expansive scale that you might not notice it/realize it at first.

Similarly with Live Skull’s Positraction.  Positraction is very atmospheric and sophisticated, though the complexity is not so initially as obvious as with their earlier records which had more obviously walloping rhytms and harshness.  Positraction is still very complex and interesting but the complexity is drenched more in mood and atmosphere.  Maybe 10, 20 years ago Positraction didn’t make as much sense when heavy math-rock riffs and noise were more in style, but atmospheric music has come more into vogue in the last few years/last decade or so with music like Godspeed You Black Emperor, indie folk, some Radiohead, etc.  Great records, both.

The Secrets of Guns and Roses’ Appetite for Destruction

Now the Trickledown editorial board/musical consulting group will reveal all of the elements which made Guns and Roses’ Appetite for Destruction such a stunning success; and in contrast why Chinese Democracy lacks nearly every element which contributed to that success.

There are three main musical elements GNR successfully and effortlessly fused on Appetite:

1) Danceable glam rock boogie ala T-Rex and 70s classic rock funk ala ZZ Top and the Rolling Stones, interspersed with pretty classic rock parts.  And lots of cowbell.

GNR on Appetite was very much steeped in the funky side of T-Rex style glam rock; did you ever notice just how boogie oriented songs like It’s so Easy, Mr. Brownstone, Night Train, Paradise City, and Anything Goes are–and did you notice how much cowbell there is in these songs?  GNR were definitely not just a heavy metal band, no heavy metal band would use so much prominently placed funky cowbell!   You can just look at Slash’s whole Marc Bolan get up to see how much 70s glam rock boogie meant to them, also in the vein of Aerosmith and ZZ Top, Rolling Stones, some Led Zeppelin, like the Black Crowes.  And  Slash would throw in an Eric Clapton-like solo here and there, like the solo in Sweet Child of mine.  Songs like Sweet Child of Mine, Think About You, etc. had a winsome 70s hippie edge to them in the choruses and some of the guitar parts that many other bands of the time lacked.

GNR had an organic hippy 70s rock thing going on for Appetite,  definitiely in contrast to harsh, more nu-metal and techno-drum track backed songs of Chinese Democracy.   Just down to Earth real drums, some good old 70s blues glam rock boogie any rock fan could enjoy and dance to, and importantly, seperated GNR out from the Hollywood hair rock bands of the 80s and allowed older classic rock fans to genuinely like them, as opposed to bands like Ratt, Motley Crue, which had less of a genuine organic 70s classic rock sound and were just cheesy, wearing makeup and panties and all, pandering only to 13-year old valley girls.

2) 80s hard rock/heavy metal in a technically proficient and aggressive Van Halen mode with lots of Guitar Center commercial-style artifical and pinch harmonics, Marshall stacks blazing

This is what got the kids in the late 80s really going, Slash had all his awesome guitar riffs and tricks straight out of the Van Halen school, with lots of artificial harmonics and pinch harmonics thrown in coming from roaring Marshall stacks and twisting, winding 80s metal riffs.  It all sounded like the dudes on the Guitar Center commercials with the turgid artificial harmonic-filled riffs, but the riffs were cool.  But importantly, Slash’s awesome 80s metal guitar playing was tempered by the 70s glam boogie/classic rock side of the band, so it wasn’t all just flashy soloing and heavy riffs, but the heavy metal playing was couched in nice organic blues and boogie classic rock harmonic song structures, so it wasn’t all cheesy like Ratt and Motley Crue.  It was more like if Van Halen was the guitarist for some T-Rex, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones songs, 80s metal playing in awesome classic rock songs, not cheesy hair metal stuff.

3) Punk rock ‘ala the Sex Pistols, etc.

Here’s where GNR also appealed to the kids but also the punks; there was a harder, more authentic punk edge to Appetite than a lot of other 80s metal bands.  Listen to the chorus of My Michelle, it’s alot like the chorus of Anarchy in the UK for example.  And irreverent, fierce, and shocking lyrics in a punk vein screeched by Axl like, “Turn around * I got a use for you, besides, you ain’t got nothing better to do, and I’m, bored”  And the vivid tales of harsh-reality woes in My Michelle, etc, all with a punk edge, (and a lot of the lyrics sort of rhymed in an appealing way, though Axl, the hair braids aren’t really doing it for most of us…) were shocking and bold at the time and further set them apart from Cherry Pie hair bands like Ratt and Warrant and made for an authentic, real, appealing album to music fans everywhere.

The driving punk edge mixed with 70s organic glam-boogie/classic rock grooves and songwriting, and 80s Van Halen-style metal riff and solo Marshall guitar fireworks is what put Appetite for Destruction over the top and made it one of the most significant rock albums ever made, and etched GNR forever into the consciousness of music fans worldwide.

On a whole other point,  I would argue that Appetite really was as significant, actually a way more significant musical event than Nirvana’s Nevermind artistically and culturally; GNR with Appetite had an  as-of-yet unparalleled Led Zeppelin/T-Rex/Van Halen thing going while Nirvana’s Pixies/Ramones amalgam has revealed itself as being more dated, more one-dimensional, less impressive, more of a flash-in-the pan/one trick pony deal, and has been more easily-reproduced by a flood of simpering alterna-bands and emo bands.  No one has been able to touch, even approach Appetite’s legacy, not even Axl with the many years in the making Chinese Democracy.

Most importantly, the only element GNR still have is Axl’s great voice; but GNR lacks those other awesome, organic elements that made it such a great band before, combining 70s glam boogie/classic rock, 80s Van Halen metal, and punk rock for a great sound.

Stevie Nicks–Stand Back (with Prince on synthesizers)

Stevie Nicks–Stand Back (with Prince on synthesizers)

Wow!!! This song is a great 80s synth classic rocker–but did you know that Prince played the synths on it??!!!  Apparently Stevie Nicks wrote the song to the melody of Prince’s Little Red Corvette–she told Prince, and he came over and recorded the synths to it!!!

From Wikipedia:

Nicks has often told the story of how she wrote the song. She wrote it shortly after she was married to Kim Anderson. The newlyweds were driving up to San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara when Prince’s song “Little Red Corvette” came on the radio. Nicks states that she started humming along to the melody of the song, and “Stand Back” was born. They stopped and got a tape recorder and she recorded the demo right there in the honeymoon suite that night. Later, when Nicks went into the studio to record the song, she called Prince and told him the story of how she wrote the song to his melody. He came to the studio that night and played synthesizers on it, although his contribution is uncredited on the album. Then, she says, “he just got up and left as if the whole thing happened in a dream.”

PS–Prince, man, get with the 21st century and put your videos on YouTube!!!

Prince: Little Red Corvette (I would have linked the video, but of course, Prince doesn’t have any of his videos on YouTube…)

Here’s a song Kate Bush worked on with Prince, “Why Should I Love You?“

I have to find a list of uncredited Prince projects…

Roxy Music–Out of the Blue

Roxy Music–Out of the Blue

This is a super-cool  version live with John Wetton on bass…