Over the Line

I may have crossed a line of sorts last night.

Having a baby gives you the opportunity to get back to singing - if you were a singer and now are not.  Conventional wisdom is that babies are soothed by their parents singing to them.  I'll buy that I guess, although I would also imagine there's some quality and content issues involved behind the baseline of just hearing your parent's voice.

One of the first things I discovered here, or rather confirmed what I have always suspected (and what is frequently a pop-culture joke): I don't really know the words to that many songs.

Actually this is a little bothersome because I think the real statement is that I don't know the words to that many songs out of context.  Put me in the car with the radio on an 80's or Classic Rock station and I'll be fine.  In context, with the music, I remember a staggering amount of content.  So much so that from time to time I have wondered if there wasn't something better to use those engrams for (triple integrals comes to mind).

But it's all different sitting in that glider in semi-darkness holding the baby.  Suddenly the repertory shrinks substantively.

One of my first tries was "You Can Sleep While I Drive."  But the words weren't there.  That's too bad because I really like that tune and I think it has real potential as a lullaby.  #manfanfail

Sometimes what I do remember is even more interesting than what I can't remember.  Off the top of my head I can do passable versions of "This Train" and "Make Room for Marty" from a Limelighters LP my dad gave me when I must have been just old enough to work a record player.  The album "Through Children's Eyes" was one of my favorites, I don't really know why.  I have mp3s of all the tracks now.  I went back to try to find the words to "Lollipop Tree" a little while ago.  The last track on that album is "This Land is Your Land."  I could not believe the amount of lyrics I had completely spaced from that song.

Although its not like Baby TANBI will notice.  For a while anyway.

I can do a word and melody perfect "William's Doll" from Free to Be You and Me.  I must have done hundreds of runs through that song with the Traveling Troupe.  In this case not only can I remember the words and the tune, but I can also hear people I used to sing with in my head.  I also remember the title track and "Brothers & Sisters."  I can't remember the tune for "It's Alright to Cry" and there's some disagreement in my head about the lyrics to "When I grow Up."  Part of me wonders if those lyrics were changed somewhere along the way - or maybe if my mom made some kind of artistic executive decision all those years ago.

Anyway, the line.  Out of what I can only assume was a desperate attempt to find lyrical content appropriate to my goal of calming a truly spastic child, last night I found myself recalling word for word and note for note "Comfortably Numb" from The Wall.  There are two problems here.  First, I really wonder about the content appropriateness.  There's a lot of hard living behind the story of that song.  Probably a good thing Leo has no English (that I know of).  On further recollection, perhaps The Eagles "Take It Easy" would have been more appropriate.  I might have all of that in RAM somewhere.

The other problem with "Comfortably Numb?"  The last third is a wicked guitar solo which I cannot in any way reproduce.

Too Bad You Missed Rock and Roll

There's a line like that in Almost Famous. That like sometime around 1973 Rock and Roll ceased being what it was and became something else. I was thinking about that while Mrs. TANBI and I were at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this past weekend. I put it in my head to try to see if I could identify a moment. For a minute I think it might have been The Wall. I had that thought because in an exhibit, Roger Waters says that The Wall was about rebelling against what they had become and that the transformation had been about once having been a band in a room with an audience and then eventually becoming a band on a stage in a stadium and being something completely different to the fans. That would have been 1979 - in some ways that's too recent.

Then last night I was watching Billie Bob Thorton on Bill Maher and he said essentially the same thing. I believe he said 1974 and framed it like "What act that started after 1974 do you honestly think will be known 100 years from now?" He said he'd give REM and U2, but that was really it in his mind. Apparently the comeback is usually Springsteen or The Police, but that they actually predate the 1974 cutoff.

So I did some searches, not because I couldn't think of anyone but more because I needed to verify the dates; here's 10 acts in no particular order:

• The Clash
• The Pretenders
• Heart
• Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Prince
• Madonna
• Stevie Ray Vaughan
• Indigo Girls
• Bon Jovi
• Nirvana

I believe that those acts have at least the staying power of the majority of the acts from the 50's, 60's, and 70's. It's really difficult to tell right now, as many of those early acts are still charting even though they haven't recorded in decades. Even allowing that groups like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles are truly foundational and that nobody will ever have that kind of impact again it doesn't mean that all of the groups from that era will automatically outshine all the groups since. Even if it did mean that, it would be too soon to say so if for no other reason than that we're too close to the source timewise.

The ten above are from a list of about 30 I came up with before I started to believe that if I tried to put down anything that smelled close to comprehensive that I would inevitably get pinged for leaving acts off. The sites I was looking at were real thin in Rap and Hip Hop and I think some of those acts really have a place in this discussion.

So maybe there will be gourps with real staying power who dropped after 1974. Does that mean there isn't still that difference in... something? When I first started to think about looking for the groups I figured that even if there were acts that made the "staying power" test that there might still be some taint of commercialization in the recent bands that wasn't there before. But I have to say even with Madonna and Bon Jovi it doesn't appear to be an overwhelming triumph of marketing over music (and that's without listing oh, say, Elvis Costello, Lenny Kravitz... Phish maybe).

Maybe it really is more like this: Any band that was playing music before you became an adult is classic, and anything from after is shit. That would kinda work for the character in the movie, and Thorton would have been 18 in (wait for it) 1974.

What is Hip?

I had to hook up the computer to do grades, so I thought I might give some respite from the Shotries posts.

Today was like LIVE MUSIC SUNDAY here on the break. We started off going to House of Blues' Gospel Brunch. It was a fairly interesting experience, although in hindsight I am not sure I would go again. The music is good, the food is good, the bar is an open bar, the people have a good time, and yet still the summation of all of those things just didn't make it for me and Mrs. TANBI. Probably the hardest part is that depending on the table you're seated at you could be fairly packed in. If you do decide to take in this experience I would go to the box office and see if there's any way you can get yourself at one of the round tables on the periphery rather than at the long tables in the front. I mean, you really are in the thick of it up front, but that might not be conducive to your being able to finish eating your shrimp, get it? The event is really food, and then a show and you're a little pressed to finish up if you're down front. After further review I think I woul dhave liked to have been further back and at my leisure to finish my meal. But, cool event.

Tonight we went to see Tower of Power. I've been angling to go to one of their shows for a good long time and just never made it work until today. This is a soul band, big horns, James Brown rythms - big sound, and a lot of fun. In some ways they're like the worlds foremost wedding band - they would TEAR UP your wedding. But that's not fair, because they are so much more than that, but when trying to answer the question "what are they like" and not having a real command of music terminology, that's the answer I came up with once. I think I like their sound because I think they're most like the band I would like to be in if I were in a band. It's like they were all in High School Jazz Band and made it stick and made it cool. There's a lot here that sounds like Chicago might have been had they gone a different way - funk instead of pop. At one point in this show tonight one of the horns was playing a trumpet in his right hand and a trombone in his left, alternating from one to the other. I'm not sure I could ever be that good, but if I were to change careers mid-course, and if I were to become a better horn player than I ever was in my life, and if I got together with some kindred spirts to for a soul band, maybe a Tower of Power tribute band; I have the name: Radius of Gyration.

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