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blue2blue

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  1. I'm a 17 year newbie, apparently...

     

     

    17 year newbie.PNG

    1. blue2blue

      blue2blue

      Not to mention a former moderator of the songwriting workshop forum. How soon the bots forget!

  2. Do you by chance remember Lee Knight?  "LOCATION: (I'm in parentheses -- that's why you can't hear me.)" Coincidentally (or not) I was thinking of Lee when I posted, a moment ago to my own thread (where you kindly left a "Thank-You" this day).  The subject was "My Mom, Mitch Albom and The Very Thought of You"  and it was a re-capitulation of an entry made on my previous thread -- that was 'this close' to 500,000 "views" before the platform here had a little glitch that made it all disappear! You and Lee, I see, joined the world's biggest website for musicians at the very same time -- July 2005.  I always loved Mr. Knight's postings. Say hi to him for me, would you.  Thanks, blue2blue.

     

  3. Pass. Wear these designer jeans, you'll be (and everyone else) the talk of the town. Think this way, it's good for you. You ask to conventionalize the unconventional, which has been so-ascribed because it doesn't stand up to the popular vote. I know Dylan's voice. Don't hear the music in it. I do hear air stumbling out of his voice box, some of it taking the olfactory bypass, but it doesn't do for me what I want music to do. Been tuned in for most of my 55 years but him I tune out. Him and Ethel Merman. He was better when he didn't try. I love the first 8 albums (up through John Wesley Harding) and I've learned to sorta love Nashville Skyline in small ways... but with Nashville Skyline and Self-Portrait he tries singing and it seems an effort that's not just unnecessary, but ill-rewarded. (Listen to "Blue Moon" on Self-Portrait.) Still.. to compare him with Merman seems just cruel. [Tens of millions of folks apparently loved Merman. So, you know. It's all good. ]
  4. Elsewhere you wrote: A cynic might suspect that your second post above was plagiarized from someone who isn't a commercial spammer. What about it, Sam? Sam spammed again, so Sam is gone. Bye bye, Sam. :poke:
  5. learn to. it'll be the greatest thing you'll ever do as a musician. criticizing dylan's voice is like criticizing picasso for drawing women inaccurately. I like that. Mind you, I'm not past criticizing Dylan's songwriting or voice but I think, nonetheless, you've got a real point. (Of course, Picasso, early on, 'proved' he was an entirely decent figurative artist, so there's a been there/done that aspect there.) Speaking of Dylan's voice, "I Threw It All Away" (off Nashville Skyline) just came up in my newly redesigned daily playlist and the amount of tuneful singing he does in that song is just stunning, given the snarling, off-the-cuff sounding vocals he'd been slapping down during my favorite period (Highway 61, Bringing It All Back Home, Blonde on Blonde). It's clear he's really putting some effort into using his vocal apparatus in ways he had seemingly barely explored before. (The first album probably had his most controlled singing to that point.) Of course, coming when it did, Nashville Skyline struck a lot of Dylan fans like me as utterly weird. (Not as utterly weird as Self-Portrait, of course. That one probably will go down as one of the most bizarre big name projects ever.) Cornball was a description that seemed to come up again and again. At the time, I basically figured the crashdown from his several year long speed jag in the aftermath of the motorcycle wreck just left him incapable of his former greatness. That may have been a somewhat parochial view, but, frankly, I've never been entirely able to shake it.
  6. I'll give you that. But there's a difference between you (as a young person) not liking Dylan's sound and you (as a wiser seasoned person) not liking the sound of Them Crooked Vultures. One is a dislike of the unknown/unfamiliar and the other is a dislike of something that's all too stale and (for you) all too familiar. Still, I get your point. Ain't no still about it. You got that point. I may have hit too hard on the sound of Dylan, at least with regard to my own tastes. I'd been listening to folk blues, Dave Van Ronk was a fave already,* so the concept of someone singing in an aggressively outsider manner wasn't new. But the swagger and sneer maybe was. And it was refreshing. *The radio show that was my guiding light in those days was hosted by a guy named John Davis (who is, I believe, still around) and who apparently had been a big Dylan fan until he went electric, which is just about where I came onstream with that show. So I would hear all these Dylan-penned songs but I'd hear them by anyone else, from Peter, Paul & Mary to BUffy St Marie. When I finally started hearing the originals I remember thinking, Weird, he sings them in this monotone, yet everyone seems to be able to find a melody in them. I guess it's in the sheet music. But then as I continued listening, I realized that there actually was melodic content in his vocals, but that he basically didn't bother changing the shape (and therefor resonance) of his vocal apparatus much at all as he sang, so the more or less static resonance signature of his voice box, mouth, sinuses, etc, had an effect almost like a filter, letting through a narrow range of tones... Dylan's characteristic 60s voice.
  7. You're giving me more ammo in support of a notion I have whenever the topic of words vs music comes up: if you hate the music, you won't listen to it even if the words are pure genius. But if the music/groove/hooks are good we are often willing to go easy on the words if they fall short. I'm all for giving folks ammo for a lively songwriting discussion. But if that contention was true, I don't think anyone would have given anything past, maybe, the first Dylan album much of a listen. On that album, considerable pains were taken on the presentation. His singing is certainly his most controlled and mainstream folkie sounding. The guitar playing (at least some of which may actually be his) is well recorded and played. But it seems clear that Dylan wanted to be Dylan (whoever that is, eh?) and quickly broke out of the nicely crafted packaging of the first album with the now familiar mix of off-hand throwaway wisecrackerie and achingly detailed song portraiture that marked most of his mid 60s work. Some of my favorite Dylan songs are a distinct challenge to listen to... it's only the words that pull me forward. Whereas some of the stuff I find more negligible or even lyrically annoying, I didn't mind the singing and playing so much and had, in fact, been quite optimistic. You're talking to someone who kept believing, comeback after comeback that this next Dylan album would be the one that would return him to peak form... But after a while I stopped reading rock crits and the music press and all that nonsense got sorted out in my mind and I realized it was best to just let Dylan go on being Dylan and not put my own lame expectations on him. I don't think it was until I bought Slow Train Coming that it really hit home that it was simply unfair and unrealistic to ever think that this guy was ever going to be the 60s Dylan again. But it took a long time to get myself there. PS... once again I've pushed myself into dropping a big stack of old Dylan on the virtual changer. Highway 61 Revisited... "Like a Rolling Stone." That was the first Dylan record for me... a real eye opener... so sloppy, so meandering... but those vocals just etched into you and somehow Bloomfield and the rest seemed to weave through it all...
  8. They have the naivete and phony "aw shucksiness" of 50's and ruthless belligerence of 80's conservatives. They hope to move the country forward by moving it backwards. A cynic might suspect that your second post above was plagiarized from someone who isn't a commercial spammer. What about it, Sam?
  9. Dood, can't you set aside your subjective reaction for the sake of the discussion? LOL. God forbid somebody brings up Blood On The Tracks in a general music topic. I remember when TCV appeared I was curious to hear them. I actually was quite underwhelmed with the album that emerged. But this song sounds better/catchier than I remembered. I bought and paid for Blood on the Tracks, and dang it, I'm gonna slag it when I have a chance. If I recall correctly, I'd been surrounded by later-Dylan apologists and allowed as how I thought "Idiot Wind" was a pretty good song -- but then, spurred by the discussion, I went back and listened to it again for the first time in a couple decades and decided I must have been drunk when I decided I liked that song. Frankly, you can see the roots of what I don't like in later Dylan in earlier stuff, without question. Sometimes he just seemed to write because he thought he should be. No problem, except he recorded and released some of that stuff. (And yet he seemed to not put out some of his finest songs, with them leaking out in others' versions or in bootlegs like some of those collected in the Great White Wonder double-boot, which I have from the original run.) Funny guy. Taken on whole, one of my favorite writers, without question. The old guy band above, OTOH... well... more power to 'em, you know, anyone who can make a buck in today's market and all that. It's just that that video pretty well captures at least a little of almost everything I ever rebelled against in corporate rock. Not that the addition of a Steve Perry or Dennis DeYoung vocal couldn't double up the dreadfulness for me, mind you. Let me just issue my standard disclaimer at this point: there's no such thing as objecitvely bad music. (Although we can erect various performance or other criteria, but the importance of those criteria is, ultimately, subjective.) If someone enjoys a given entertainment, then, in that context, it's all good. Carry on, my wayward sons and daughters.
  10. Mind Eraser, No Chaser Now run along face lift If it kills I got news it aint a side effect Call it a full rejecter Fuel injected time corrected teenage obstacle All i wanna do is have my mind erased I'm begging ya pleading ya stop coma teasing us all Drug company where's a pill for me I call it mind eraser, no chaser at all I could really need one of everything Law abiding dick riding fun police leave us alone Dulling the edge of a razor blade What does it mean when the knife and the hand are your own Gimme the reason why the mind's a terrible thing to waste Understanding is cruel the monkey said as it launched to space Know that i'm gonna be your dangerous side effect. Ignorance is bliss until they take your bliss away (Wooo, Shake It) Robotic mom bought me DIY kit lobotomy It's a tuck taste dance craze movie of the week Your buy the doll, kick up your bowl, then piss on the seats All i wanna do is have my mind erased I'm begging ya pleading ya stop coma teasing us all Drug company, wheres a pill for me It reads, Mind eraser, no chaser in bright lights Im more in need than i've ever been New-age goose-step on a karma collision Dulling the edge of a razor blade What does it mean when the knife and the hand are your own (Your own, Your own, Your own) Gimme the reason why the mind's a terrible thing to waste Understanding is cruel the monkey said as it launched to space Know that i'm gonna be your dangerous side effect Ignorance is bliss until they take your bliss away Gimmie the reason why the mind's a terrible thing to waste Now know that i am your dangerous side effect Now know that i am your dangerous side effect Let me tell you to save it, just really i dont give a {censored} There are some interesting bits in the lyrics but man, that music, oof. Why would people my age (apparently) want to play such puerile stuff? Can't they think of anything meaningful to do with their lives? Rock really did die back when...
  11. A death metal band could scream "I'm a Little Teapot" and it wouldn't matter as long as they had brutal guitars and fast drums. I think I saw the Dickies do a speed-punk version of "I'm a Little Teapot," complete with gestures. It was probably the one time I really liked their schtick.
  12. i didn't mean it to be insulting. i'm actually not sure. i have no idea how to respond to his posts. his existence baffles the {censored} out of me.But now that you've stopped and thought about it, I'm sure, you can see how someone might take it that way. There are forums at HC where there is much latitude for verbal combat, but this isn't one of them. If folks want to tussle, they should take it someplace where that sort of thing is tolerated.
  13. It's too bad I got so distracted by memories of "The Bird" my first time through this post because I think this bit above is a crucial thing to remember about all human communication. When it happens, to the extent it happens, it's a miracle.
  14. As I understand it, "God love 'em" (him/her) is also an expression in common use in the American south and often used in parallel fashion. I think of it as a way of pulling back to acknowledge the Big Picture, typically after saying something perhaps a bit pointed about someone from a narrowly personal point of view. Kind of like a secular humanist adding, "... but, of course, it takes all kinds."
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