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Gotta give credit to the only show (almost) on TV dedicated totally to music


Kendrix

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Well... excluding Ausin City limits or Soundstange which are telecasts of concerts. Im talkin 'bout a produced TV show dedicated to music.

 

It is devoid of almost all celebrity and focuses totally on the music, the musicians and musicianship.

The songwriters are often mentioned.

Its skits/vignettes are pre-cursors to modern music videos.

The sound is appropriate for the genre and is clean / well produced.

Its not over compressed.

It targets a specific audience but covers a range of musical styles that appeal to this audience.

Its long running.

 

Man - when you start seeing the virtues of LAURENCE WELK....

...Someone please shoot me. :D

 

Fact is I tripped across this on cable and actually watched it for over 10 minutes. The thoughts above were actually goin on in my head.

Even though he music is ridiculous the above statements are all true.

 

Dont worry Im signing up for electro-shock therapy tomorrow.

 

Why isnt there something like this on TV with modern tunes/bands featured playing live?

 

I wonder what modern technology could do for the bubble making machine? Combine those bubbles with a few lasers and you may really have something.

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One show I really like is Sessions at West 54th. Great show... real musicians and actual singer/ songwriters... not none of the whiny crap either - the real stuff, songwriters that have written for the big names playing their own music... and some "big name acts too"

 

This show is where I had my first exposure to Madeski, Martin and Wood as well as the Kronos Quartet

 

Any show with that type of line up,and still manages to have Al Jerreau and John Mellancamp is killer in my book

 

Its on Public broadcasting (PBS) typically

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Comcast has a show on their "CN8" channel called "Music Choice" which is pretty much concert films. I've seen Cake and Jamie Cullum, so they have a variety of styles.

 

I actually had a Lawrence Welk flashback yesterday :freak: Sure, it's dated, but there's a lot to be said for the straightforward presentation and dignity of the performers.

 

Wunnerful, wunnerful, wunnerful.

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My Scottish grandparents were LW devotees. They'd pour their glass of Port and get all excited. Company over or not, everything stood still until the show was over. Well... not still really, because Fred and Mary would dance for their guests.

 

Old Mary never stopped trying to convince me of the quality of the singers. I'd roll my eyes and smirk a zitty faced grin.

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My wife did some LW shows, and some live concerts, and was asked to be a "regular" on the show... but she was all of 16 - 17 at the time, and decided to take a contract with RCA instead. She enjoyed doing the shows and concerts though, and said Mr Welk was a very nice and kind-hearted gentleman in person. And style of music aside (and I admit to pretty much HATING that show when I was a kid ;) ), those cats in the LW Orchestra were some serious players.

 

I'd love to find copies of my wife's appearances on video though. :)

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Lawrence Welk once looked at me and a friend as we drove through DMC on Sunset Blvd and sneered. My buddy said, dude, Lawrence Welk just sneered at us. I said, Dude, you're high. (He was. Very. Well, expanded would be a better word.) It's just some guy in a Lincoln Towncar with wavy, combed back hair.

 

Then the guy in the Towncar stomped it, as though to kick us to the curb, and as he took off in a rumble and cloud of fine, rich, late 70s half-burned gasoline, I saw that his license plate said:

 

A 1 AN A 2

 

 

"Dude. Lawrence Welk really did sneer at us. I feel... honored."

 

______________________

 

PS... I think the point about his old show is well-taken. And there were really some fine musicians and singers on there. Of course, you weren't going to hear anything too culturally challenging... if anything, when other mainstream music and variety shows moved to embrace the new spirit of freedom and experimentation in the mid and late 60s, LW pretty much went the other way. But, you know, I really enjoyed the show back when I was a little kid. But he was always -- for me -- a pale second to the great (if unfortunately hot-headed) Spade Cooley. Now that was a show.

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My Grandmother used to try to force me and my sisters to watch Lawrence Welk almost every Sunday, when we had dinner at her house. Even then I knew that show was the height of Nurdness, really the extreme edge of Geekdom, and to be forced to watch it for more than five minutes could damage my mojo forever.:D So.....as soon as she was distracted I would slide on my belly toward the door, and run like hell. Please God no, please don't make me watch that. Ahhhhhh, my eyes, me ears.

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A few years ago I stumbled across one of those local PBS station pledge drive specials, where they dredge up their blandest shows and offer them as DVD premiums in order to earn enough money to make their real programs. It's usually either one of those simple-minded self-help sophists or some concert gathering of moldy one-hit wonders.

 

This instance found them offering the Best of the Lawrence Welk Show on DVD as their gift to subscribers. And they had plenty of LW clips.

 

I was about to flip past it when I saw LW chucking and jiving like a madman in front of his band as they ripped through "In the Mood". I mean, they were cooking. The Welk was hipping it like Cab Calloway. I was surprised at the meat of the sound--this was what Big Band Jazz was supposed to be. And when they got to the solo, the tenor sax stood up and smoked! I was stunned. Those bastards could play.

 

So, they motor through the hook and come up on the solo section again. They actually had me anxious to see which guy would take it this time: The baritone sax? Trumpet? Trombone?

 

No. The same tenor sax guy stood up and played the EXACT SAME SOLO, NOTE FOR NOTE, INFLECTION FOR INFLECTION.

 

I realized I had been had. I had taken the facsimile of art for the real thing. I turned off the tube in disgust. LW was the Milli Vanilli of his generation.

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