Members Stackabones Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 What has influenced you in the past -- or since the last FIT? * I recall hearing Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" when it first came out. Along with the other cool songs of 1979 (Blondie's "Heart of Glass", The Knack's "My Sharona", The Cars' "Let's Go", and several more), it was part of personal catalogue of pop music that I started hearing on the radio, at the roller skating rink, and through personal purchases of 45s or cassettes up at the local Target. "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" came out almost 30 years ago in July 1979. He wrote it and had complete creative control over the track (though Quincy Jones was the producer, so you've gotta wonder how much input he had). The song's intro is really remarkable: bass groove, light percussive shaker, spoken introduction. You have no idea what's coming after it. And then bam! The groove sets in and MJ soars above it in a perfect falsetto -- and his chest voice responses showcase his ability to phrase balanced lines. Wiki has an interesting article and I found this part relevant to our forum. Jackson claimed that when the melody of "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" came to him, he couldn't shake it off. He found himself humming and singing it whilst walking through the Jacksons' Encino home. As Michael could not play, he had his brother Randy perform the melody on a piano in the family's recording studio. When Jackson's mother, a devout Jehovah's Witness, heard the song, she was shocked by the lyrical content. Katherine pointed out that the title could be misconstrued as pertaining to sexual activity. Jackson reassured her that the song was not a reference to sex, but could mean whatever people wanted it to. Upon playing the recording to Quincy Jones, it was agreed that the song would be featured on Off the Wall. Here we see a songwriter who had a song land in his lap. He needed help to get it out of his head and on the piano. He received criticism from his family, and he defended his song's meaning. Beyond all the stardom and star making machinery, beyond the incredible dance skills and often bizarre public persona, he was a songwriter. +RIP MJ+ [YOUTUBE]4_hz2am90Hk[/YOUTUBE] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 Looks like its Dia de los Muertos here in the Influences Thread... (This is, in the great tradition of teen dance shows of the sixties, haphazardly lip-synced. The late/great Sky Saxon seems particularly unconcerned with even going through the motions. And, in fact, the skeleton crew on stage doesn't even include a bass player. [sky played bass on the first two albums.])vV8KvKYRxig More on Sky Saxon and his recent passing: http://austin.decider.com/articles/rip-sky-saxon,29678/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted June 26, 2009 Moderators Share Posted June 26, 2009 Love Micheal. Off the Wall rates as one of my top albums. My "don't ask don't tell" as a young rocker. And the Seeds... loved them. My first band used them as a prototype for what we were doing. We tried to combine the Costello thing with lots of Seeds sneer and early brash garage punk. Leadbelly. I learned this song not ever hearing this. Right from a book, on an old imported acoustic. Horrible guitar. My mom still has it. Written by Leadbelly. I see that every time I played the song from my mom's book, the name captured my attention. Leadbelly, wtf. The first guitar book I bought myself was Leadbelly 12 String Guitar. And my first nice guitar was a brand new midgrade Yamaha 12 string acoustic. I worked all the picking/strumming patterns to death... [YOUTUBE]eCf60f_sAA0[/YOUTUBE] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members speierg Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 Looks like that dude just got back from the dentist...a whole bunch of laughing gas and a big fat tongue and lips from all the novacaine and this is the kind of performance you get. (Speaking of the guy from The Seeds, of course.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members speierg Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 Here's one from Mr. Roy Buchanan (keeping with the theme of artists that have passed away). One of the originators of the "pinch-harmonic" as an intended note. Brilliant stuff. [YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhino55 Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 Sad face for MJ. never heard The Seeds before.... This is a band I need to look more into You know I love some Leabelly... Last night randomly did what I consider a cool version of Cotton Feilds. Slowed down a bit, thumping quater notes on the body of the guitar, and singing while my podnah did the lap steel thing. So he has deffinately inspired me this week too here is one another band I play with started doing that I cant get enough of on a side note I cant seem how to embed you tube files. Anybody help me out with this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 Looks like that dude just got back from the dentist...a whole bunch of laughing gas and a big fat tongue and lips from all the novacaine and this is the kind of performance you get. (Speaking of the guy from The Seeds, of course.) I think he was going for that sleepy/sexy bedroom eyes thing... and trying so hard at it a couple times that he clearly forgot to lip sync -- seems to me like he misses the last line of the song, in fact. The bands would do those lip sync American Bandstand and Lloyd Thaxton spots for those daily shows with the notion that, a) they all looked cheezy and fake because everyone lip synced and b) no one would ever see them except the kids who were home that afternoon, and that they'd never be repeated. FWIW, Talking Heads and the Sex Pistols (!) did American Bandstand segments, IIRC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Okieslims Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 [YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE] I just found this song. It could be played right next to Van Morrison if you ask me. It was recorded in 1927 and was waaaaaaay ahead of its time. [YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE] My favorite Genesis song [YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE] I was in the front row for this song.. took a hell of a lot of effort to get there.. but was worth it.. he killed this song Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members smallbutmighty Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 It occurred to me this week just how much John Williams influenced me musically. Star Wars. Jaws. Indiana Jones. Jurassic Park. The Olympic Fanfare. I can sing them all....and so can you. I write rock and country, but there's is definitely a part of me that always strives to impart something more theatrical, some sense of grandeur, into my songs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhino55 Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 What album should I start with to get maximum the Seeds efffect? ohh and another one I've been wearing out this week is Little Feat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MDR Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 another one I've been wearing out this week is Little Feat Ah, yes. Their oft-overlooked first album. Terrific. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 [...] never heard The Seeds before.... This is a band I need to look more into [...]It was a bit of a mixed bag... like so many of the 60s garage rockers, they had a handful of hooky, memorable songs... but unlike other garage rockers, who often had a tendency to sound like each other or bigger bands, the Seeds were pretty identifiable across the body of their work. There's a reason they're often cited as proto-punks (obviously), but they were actually one of the first American bands to deeply immerse themselves in full hippiedom, and Sky was a true freak in the finest sense of the word. [Hippies began calling themselves "freaks" in the late 60s and early 70s because they often felt that the word hippie had been coopted and devalued by the straight media. So the hippies adopted one of the most common insults hurled at them and embraced it.] A good place to start with the Seeds would be the 19 song combo release of The Seeds and Web of Sound, sometimes listed as just The Seeds. (Looks like you can get that combo relatively cheaply at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Seeds/dp/B000QZVFV2/ref=sr_f3_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1246033726&sr=103-1 ) But you might want to listen before you buy... I'm a big Seeds fan and listened to that combo album in its entirety yesterday via my Rhapsody subscription... it's a thing of its time... and it was kinda on the tweaked side, then. Stand out songs include "Pushin' Too Hard" (a real proto-punker), "Can't Seem to Make You Mine," "Mr. Farmer," "Tripmaker, "Try to Understand," and the quirky, 14+ minute "Goin' Home" style quasi-epic, "Up in Her Room." Another highlight is "Girl, I Want You," which starts with proto-punk urgency and ends up with a rave-up/freak out. __________ Little Feat was a great band from a lot of perspectives. One of the funkiest mostly-white bands in the 70s, that's for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhino55 Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 cool I'll check that out this weekend since I quit somking a pack of cigs a day I have more money for fun stuff like albums and its about time to get something new! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MDR Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 since I quit somking a pack of cigs a day I have more money for fun stuff like albums and its about time to get something new! My congratulations Rhino. As a cancer survivor, I can attest that that's one of the best things you could possibly do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted June 26, 2009 Moderators Share Posted June 26, 2009 More on Sky Saxon and his recent passing: http://austin.decider.com/articles/rip-sky-saxon,29678/ I love this one... [YOUTUBE]cmHTyLBIZ1g[/YOUTUBE] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members flatpickle Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 Just read Frank Zappa's biography ("Zappa"). That got me listening to Zappa with new ears. Here's "Watermelon in Easter Hay". [YOUTUBE]mfY3BhYNIjg[/YOUTUBE] Also, been going through some of Loudon Wainwright's more recent catalogue. That guy impresses the heck out of me--what a lyricist. There are plenty of misses, but when he's on, watch out. Here's "Hitting You". [YOUTUBE]LHSlZLAo3D8[/YOUTUBE] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Stackabones Posted June 26, 2009 Author Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 This has been a pretty intense FIT for me. Except for the Seeds, I've have strong connections with just about everything mentioned so far. I'd better check out The Seeds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 Yah... Sky just didn't seem to have the hang of the whole lip sync thing... I like how he was all out of breath at the end, nonetheless. As someone who saw his share of American Bandstand and Lloyd Thaxton, as well as Hullabaloo and Shindig and other prime time pop and variety shows where lip syncing was typical, I was always distinctly amused by lip syn performances of songs with fadeouts... There's just no graceful way to deal with them, of course; they always look painfully goofy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members speierg Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 By the way, how do you embed? I had to figure this one out today too...when you create a post, you will notice a toolbar with lots of formatting options above the place where you type your text. Options like Bold, Italics, Underline, etc. All the way to the right, you will see a "YouTube" button. When you click that button, the editor inserts the actual words YOUTUBE (in brackets) into your post...a begin YOUTUBE and a "slash" or "end" YOUTUBE. I suppose you could also just type that in instead of clicking on the button. Next, when you are on the actual YouTube site, right under the "URL" option (upper right hand corner) is an "embed" option. Simply cut and paste the text from that "embed" option in between the two YOUTUBE bracket things and you are all set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 26, 2009 Members Share Posted June 26, 2009 A shortcut for embedding here on HC is to take the YouTube video ID string from the URL and place just it between the YT tags... So if you had a URL that looked like this: ... you'd just take the part after v= and put it between the YT tags. Thus: l5TJMM2vJHg Now, sometimes more stuff gets tacked on the backside of the URL, in which case you find the part between the v= and the next ampersand (&) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5TJMM2vJHg&feature=channel_page ... and put that between the tags. That works here but it may be different on other boards. On your own webpage, the standard YT embeds typically work well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members hypcollector Posted June 27, 2009 Members Share Posted June 27, 2009 i can see for miles and miles. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mji4nAk_8ZY&feature=related take the b.s. out.....leave the music...friday makes me happy.....pg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members flatpickle Posted June 27, 2009 Members Share Posted June 27, 2009 Worked like a charm. Thanks for the help, guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Sentry68 Posted June 27, 2009 Members Share Posted June 27, 2009 I have been living on this for a few days... Allison Krauss and Robert Plant. I think it's a love it or hate it gig, but I love it. I totally dig her, she's the best (She has more grammys than any other female artist). And Plant... well, it's freakin' Robert Plant.A set of covers chosen by T-Bone Burnett, Raising Sand is a killer album... [YOUTUBE]MpjnaGOeHH4[/YOUTUBE] And HI to everyone! Can't make it around too much for a while, but I will return soon as I can, I miss this place! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Marko Posted June 27, 2009 Members Share Posted June 27, 2009 And HI to everyone! Can't make it around too much for a while, but I will return soon as I can, I miss this place! I haven Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Sentry68 Posted June 27, 2009 Members Share Posted June 27, 2009 I haven Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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