30 Rock ends tonight?! Why doesn't it run through the spring like a normal season? This is awful.
Look on the bright side: It lasted for 7 years despite crap ratings.
lame compilation of fb links post
I dunno read, the bit about 30 Rock ending was pretty useful.
Have you guys trying doing this twitter thing? I keep imagining it's all people from my high school on there, including one very erotic fantasy.
Re: iconic songs. My husband hates Led Zepplin. He had no idea who they were until I started pointing out that Stairway to Heaven and Cashmere are featured in so many places. I feel kinda evil because my husband gets the song from the opening credits to The Boss stuck in his head and I haven't told him that it's Robert Plant singing. But it would ruin the song for him, so I'm being altruistic, right?
I do like that Beatles song about "Elaine."
I've told this story before, but whatever:
Along with various other dubious advice, my brother said that "Immigrant Song" (IIRC) is the gateway LZ song that you use to get girls to like LZ.
Cashmere?
And here I always thought Weezer's "The Sweater Song" was original to them.
"Immigrant Song" (IIRC) is the gateway LZ song that you use to get girls to like LZ.
Did he always call his girlfriends "Valhalla"?
That would totally work for girls who are AWESOME.
10: That's the new PR campaign being launched by the Indian government.
7. I thought it was D'yer Maker, which struck me as super hilarious, because kind of true?
Oh! No, not Immigrant song. What's the song that sounds vaguely rasta? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you don't have to go-oh, oh, oh, oh, oh...
The error wasn't intentional, but these reactions to the error are so funny that I'm going to start making intentional errors.
"Immigrant Song" (IIRC) is the gateway LZ song that you use to get girls to like LZ.
Especially if you show the kitten video!
[Pinball Wizard] was never meant to be included in the album -- the fact that the Tommy character would be inexplicably good at pinball was an afterthought, thrown into the mix at the last minute to try to get a good review from Nik Cohn, one of the most influential music critics in the industry, who, by the way, happened to be a big pinball fan.
That's hilarious.
This is the best thread in ages. 1. I had never seen that Pinball Wizard video, and didn't even realize Ken Russell made that movie. And 2. I fucking love Led Zeppelin, and the kitten video is awesome.
I kind of have to agree with Pete Townshend about Pinball Wizard. I'm relieved to hear his opinion of it is as low as mine, as lots of people whose taste I otherwise respect seem to love it.
As I said over at the other place, other notable disowned songs are "You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party" and "Material Girl."
"How to get your girlfriend to like Zeppelin" seems like it should be in the same issue of Maxim as "How to get your girlfriend to try anal"
Is there advice out there for getting girls to like Rush, or Marvel Comics?
What about Ben Wolfson mix tapes?
26: The answer to both is to play Led Zeppelin's "Squeeze My Lemon."
"Fight for your right to party" is such a good song, as well as being fundamentally true. They definitely should have disavowed (and did, I think disavow) "Girls."
Didn't Rush sort of disown some of the (Ayn) Randier songs in their catalog?
Uh, Rob, we aren't using that person's name anymore.
That 'Five Songs...' thing is excellent, and led me to their '5 Musicians who are Thieving Bastards'.
http://www.cracked.com/article_18500_the-5-most-famous-musicians-who-are-thieving-bastards.html
That 'Five Songs...' thing is excellent, and led me to their '5 Musicians who are Thieving Bastards'.
http://www.cracked.com/article_18500_the-5-most-famous-musicians-who-are-thieving-bastards.html
I stole that comment from myself.
DZ is the real gateway. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHHHfMei0LA
30 Rock ends tonight? OMG, that is terrible. One of the best comedies in the history of television, right up with Seinfeld and the SImpsons in its glory years. GOODBYE LIZ LEMON
Pinball Wizard never made any sense to me either. I'm glad Townsend doesn't like it. Great tune ruined by nonsensical lyrics.
They definitely should have disavowed (and did, I think disavow) "Girls."
They also changed the lyrics of "Paul Revere" to indicate that the sheriff's daughter shared agency with the narrator.
OT but we just got the Valentine list from Mara's school and her classmat Mess/iah has little brothers Yah/weh and Imm/an/uel. Wow. They're some sort of black Messianic "Jews." The baby class also features Ne/he/miah, Pati/ence and St/ory, which I quite like.
That's a great list. (Creep is still a good song.)
33 violates the sanctity of off-blog communications.
33: That's why he spelled it backwards, of course.
get sweatily mashed out by an unwashed Moby
Why is this not yet the new mouseover text?
40: What, no Bildad the Shuhite?
Are you people trolling me? Led Zeppelin is the worst band ever. They symbolize all that is sick and wrong with rock music. I hope to God that when Robert Plant is in Hell for all eternity, that he's forced to sing "Stairway to Heaven" every night while wearing a French maid costume, with a pineapple stuck up his ass.
Liz Spigot, you should have sex with your husband right now, and tell him it's because your internet friends admire him for rejecting all that's sick and wrong with rock music.
47: It seems like a girl's name to me, but I don't know any of the babies by name. Mara denies knowing such a person.
45: This was by no means an exhaustive list of the unusual names. The list of popular, mainstream names would be far shorter.
My husband hates Led Zepplin. He had no idea who they were
?? Is he twelve? Does he like Devo? Perhaps he's a fan of Britney Spears?
What is this about having to get girls to like Led Zeppelin, anyway? huh? I mean, I can see needing to introduce someone carefully to Black Sabbath or something, but Zeppelin?
I know a (girl) kid named Story too. I don't know if it's short for something else or not, though.
49 It's really odd because he's familiar with all other mainstream music. I guess they're too busy playing Lynyrd Skynyrd in the South to make room for Led Zeppelin.
Zep rules, especially the slide guitar on their cover of "Travelin' Riverside Blues." [Secret devil sign.]
My son has a good friend named St/ory. Also a girl.
My husband hates Led Zepplin. He had no idea who they were
Maybe he was just making a pedantic joke.
More seriously, I can understand hating Led Zeppelin, even though it would be wrong to do so. But I can't understand not having any idea who they are. That's just bizarre.
Why are we google-proofing St/ory, anyway?
51: Let's call it a blind spot and politely not mention it again. Everyone has a couple of those.
In other news, I never really liked 30 Rock, so no loss there. I mean, it's okay, but whatever.
Led Zeppelin is the worst band ever.
This seems very hard to justify, even for someone strongly disinclined towards Led Zeppelin. Just comparing them to bands that could be considered to be in a roughly similar genre, are they worse than AC/DC? KISS? Aerosmith? Black Sabbath? Motley Crue? I could go on.
33: Oh shoot. Sorry, you can fix that.
Oudemia and I went to school with someone who named his daughter S/tory, but it was his father's middle name. Also I don't think it is spelled that way.
58: none of those bands sang about hobbits and Robert Plant sings in the wrong key.
49: Are you high? Both Devo and Britney Spears are obviously better than Led Zeppelin.
I don't think any of those bands belongs in the same category except maybe Aerosmith.
Why are we google-proofing St/ory, anyway?
Because it's blasphemous to refer to St. Horry outright. It's like writing 'sblood.
Why are we google-proofing St/ory, anyway?
Because it's blasphemous to refer to St. Horry outright. It's like writing 'sblood.
Why are we google-proofing St/ory, anyway?
Because it's blasphemous to refer to St. Horry outright. It's like writing 'sblood.
Why are we google-proofing St/ory, anyway?
Because it's blasphemous to refer to St. Horry outright. It's like writing 'sblood.
In my hometown -- as was surprisingly widely known -- there was a family with kids named Ar/maged/don (boy), Omn/ipoten/ce (girl), and... one other I forget. Surname was more or less Smith. (Ok, less.) Their little brother was in my queer youth group and had an unusual, but not quite as awesome, name, although I can only speculate about everyone's relative awesomeness in person.
11: See, I'm hung up on this idea that girls who are AWESOME would actually come around to liking Led Zeppelin, although I otherwise endorse this remark. But it is all completely alien to me, since my best friend and I watched "The Song Remains the Same" in its entirety when we were in middle school -- and so we knew it was HORRRRRRRIBLE -- during which viewing party her sister's male friend mooned us through the TV room window. So we were the topsy-turvy version of 26?
56: I google-proofed them all because that seemed like the fairest way to do it. The weirder part is the three brothers, which really deserved google-proofing since they'll presumably grow up to use the internet unless it's against their religion. Though really, there are probably lots of places those names co-occur anyway. I was just trying to be respectful.
58: Further evidence of bad taste, my husband loves AC/DC.
67: Ar/maged/don would make a great middle name. Especially when you're yelling at the kid. "James Ar/maged/don Smith!"
My favorite thing about "Story" as a name: the thought that they would all viscerally hate the idea of fashioning a narrative of their lives in order to discover deeper meaning and unity... "Oh gee, ha ha, I've never heard that one before. Narrative ethics can go die in a fire already, god."
Then, one day, they would be forced to own up to their privilege by meeting a girl named Blason.
Ar/maged/don
I saw it once without the hashtags. Nasty stuff.
watched "The Song Remains the Same"
Mistake number one. Listen to the music without watching any accompanying video.
Oh, believe me, we had logged dozens of hours listening to (and trying to play) the music on its own. The "trying to play" came about because I had made a seriously bootleg tape of Stairway to Heaven, in which I think I put a portable tape recorder next to my parents' stereo and got only the non-guitar channels. Fifty thousand bars of tweetling flutes and then Robert Plant: "Guitar Hero" avant la lettre, or something. That might have been mistake number one.
72.1 is wonderful, though I don't really get 72.2.
That might have been mistake number one.
Yes! God, my initial Zeppelin stuff was on crappy audio cassettes that weren't even metal tapes (geez!), so they degraded quickly.
So, but The Song Remains the Same is from Houses of the Holy, which is a pretty good album.
none of those bands sang about hobbits and Robert Plant sings in the wrong key.
To quote Brock Samson, those lyrics are about love! and longing!
Wait, I may have misunderstood "trying to play": you may mean that you were trying to perform the pieces, and you came to hate them therefore.
I've mentioned before that I went to a LZ concert once. Judas Priest opened. Now *they* were awful.
Just to be clear, I'm talking about the armageddon where one of your friends takes his pants off and sits on your other friend's face because he's being a jerk or something.
I don't think any of those bands belongs in the same category except maybe Aerosmith.
Now I'm curious to know what bands you think do belong in the same category.
And someone recorded it. Probably sounds like crap.
82: I sense a trap. I believe we are not using the term "category" in the same way.
Led Zeppelin were actually good musicians.
In all honesty, I don't know enough about the bands listed in 58 to say that they're not good musicians. I should probably leave it at that.
That is fair, but also sort of my point... it's hard to come of with any meaningful criterion by which Led Zeppelin is the worst band ever.
Oh, but 58 specified "genre". Um, okay. (Still, though, Motley Crue? AC/DC? naw.)
87: Walt Someguy is toying with us. I just saw 61.
87: worst at not sleeping with fourteen-year-olds?
I don't have any particular brief for Zep, but I'm appalled that people would dismiss the greatness of AC/DC.
AC/DC screams an awful lot. I admit that I just associate them with the headbanging types from high school.
I recall, for example, that I was trying to play tennis after school once, and someone put on "Back in Black" on a boombox. Jesus christ, shut that up, I'm trying to concentrate here.
That was my reaction anyway. Also the people who liked that also liked Journey.
I question the judgment of anyone who doesn't like Back In Black.
87: Thieves! Kinda interesting and raises an issue much discussed in these here parts.
raises an issue much discussed in these here parts.
I don't see what it has to do with my enormous & beautiful penis.
worst at not sleeping with fourteen-year-olds?
Pff, whatever.
I would put Zep up against Jerry Lee Lewis as creepy child molesters any day. On the other hand, Jerry Lee Lewis straight up killed one of his wives and didn't get in trouble, so point for him there.
One man's meat is another man's Zeppelin.
Sifu, I honestly don't know whether I should decide that Zeppelin's music is verboten because of child molesting. I tend to separate the art from the artist in that age-old debate, but I get why others don't. (Of course one might also argue that Zeppelin's music doesn't ascend to art in the first place.)
I've come to be more appreciative of AC/DC in my dotage. And props for things like showcasing bagpipes in a song about rock'n'roll. Aussie TV style.
Jerry Lee Lewis got married for the seventh time last March.
104: good lord he's still alive? Fuck Anne Rice for being right.
Devo is completely amazing, of course.
Oh my God, in 58, did Urple just list Sabbath, the greatest band ever, with those other bands, including KISS I mean, I really like Zeppelin, but compared to Sabbath? Urple it is fucking ON.
105: See, that's a good song. Is that actually about a 14-year-old? I didn't want to know that.
To his caregiver who had previously been married to a cousin of his (the brother of his third wife--the one who was a 13-yr old 2nd cousin).
I am my own step-cousin-in-law.
See, that's a good song.
I feel like maybe you saying this gets to the heart of where we might disagree on Zeppelin, because that is a seriously terrible song.
113: That one had gone into the memory dump.
The first Black Sabbath album basically invented metal, or at least as much as a single album has ever created any genre.
The Slits' version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is really good.
But we're through being cool here, right?
113: Ah. We disagree. I also think of Houses of the Holy as a complete album -- not just song by song. As soon as I began to hear that song, I had it as part of a whole piece, if that makes sense. There are a few bands I register that way, Crimson being another. I'm not right or wrong to do so; that's just how I experienced them to begin with, and I'm not sure I can really assess an individual song in isolation now.
115: Name that writer:
They even have discordant jams with bass and guitar reeling like velocitized speedfreaks all over each other's musical perimeters yet never quite finding synch -- just like Cream! But worse.
Led Zeppelin were awesome but not in a way we can understand anymore.
115: but you have no problem with Carp dissing Priest?
120: Apparently!
What is that awful noise linked in 117? Gah.
The elephant in the room, of course, is Budgie, but I assume they haven't been mentioned because they're so universally loved.
Oh my God, in 58, did Urple just list Sabbath, the greatest band ever, with those other bands, including KISS I mean, I really like Zeppelin, but compared to Sabbath? Urple it is fucking ON.
You misunderstand me. In creating that list I wasn't suggesting those other bands were necessarily all bad. I was merely creating a list of bands of which no person with any possible rational set of musical preferences could think the worst was Led Zeppelin.
But we're through being cool here, right?
We were through with that long ago, JP.
119 -- I'll guess without checking everyone's favorite overrated music journalist LB.
Look you send LB your album and she'll write what she thinks on unfogged. They knew the deal.
I told them I don't even know anybody in Toronto!
It was out of synch for its genre and independently discordant.
128 made me burst out laughing. Dammit, Apo, how do you manage to do this?
On that note, g'night all. No harm, no foul.
Is there advice out there for getting girls to like Rush
The acoustic set was really worth the price of admission.
133.last: OK, but don't fade away, pars. 130 was for you--trying to get you past the '70s, even if just by one measly year.
Meanwhile I am rocking the fuck out to the Chico Hamilton version of the Big Blue Marble Theme.
116
They just played that song at the chipotle. Right after some fela. I am glad I don't feel the need to have better musical taste than a chain restaraunt because that could take some work.
My kids like journey since "don't stop believing" and that "lights go down in the city" song are big sf giants songs.
136: Wait, since I'm still liberally applying -- doctor's explicit orders -- this anti-itch lotion (which smells icky): I'm past the 70s! Dude! In college I liked Elvis Costello and (the) Talking Heads! I've seen Laurie Anderson in concert. It's not a 70s thing.
"O Superman" was, in fact, released in 1981, but, uh, I am not sure Talking Heads and Elvis Costello are going to be your best options for making the case you like music from decades other than the '70s.
Oh fuck me with a broomstick I hadn't read 80. It's a bit rich since Carp has devoted his musical life to a bunch of mediocre musicians playing interminable live shows, even the best of which can't touch, say, Unleashed in the East.
I mostly like music from the 80s but I also think the Pixies and REM are pretty good.
We know who is who! Now there isn't a doubt.
The best kind of Sneetches are Sneetches without.
This thread is kind of hilarious in how perfectly it reflects the demographics of Unfogged.
ooh, now he is reading and approving the comments, good, that is more labor intensive i guess
or he seems has left, good night apo
and teo
if you wont delete or block my comments i would
How long do you have to comment before you decide that, since we aren't deleting your comments, you'll stop leaving comments?
This is the most insane and beautiful puzzle I could imagine.
since when you are not deleting my comments? since now? good you can start counting the "moratorium"
but i'm afraid your other admins will be deleting me and breaking my word, then it's not my fault
I know a (girl) kid named Story too. I don't know if it's short for something else or not, though.
It's short for novella.
I dated a guy named Sto/rey. He made really sweet mix tapes full of folk music.
GET OUT OF MY MIND!!!!
149: Clearly the answer is "Until such time as McDonald's brings back Shamrock Shakes for St. Patrick's Day."
"At the sound of the tone, the time will be 1:45 a.m. Central Arrakis Time. At the sound of the tone, the time will be 1:46 a.m. Central Arrakis Time."
There was a Shuttle commander (male) called Story Musgrave.
Sabbath is better than Led Zeppelin. AC/DC is obviously better. Nobody gives a shit about KISS or Motley Crue. Led Zeppelin is the worst because no one will, unprompted, tell you have awesome KISS or Motley Crue are. LZ is just beloved enough that you have to hear about them, year after year after year after year.
Sabbath is better than Led Zeppelin. AC/DC is obviously better. Nobody gives a shit about KISS or Motley Crue.
Yeah. Sabbath are a genuinely great band. I don't mean that as a bit of blog comment hyperbole. You could make a pretty good case for them as one of the best and most influential British bands of the past 50 years. Their influence is vast. It'd be hard to pick a more influential British band of the same period, anyway.
Further evidence of bad taste, my husband loves AC/DC.
Loving AC/DC and not liking LZ seems like good evidence of a non-broken taste in music. Personally, I don't mind the first couple of LZ albums, but preferring AC/DC to them is a no brainer.
And Tony Iommi lost the finger tips of his left hand in an accident at the British Leyland Longbridge car factory, when a sheet of steel plate fell on him. Hence the barre chords.
I found the Cracked thing hilarious. Re: Creep, I was surprised they didn't mention that Johnny Greenwood, the guitarist, hates it as well - the "ggnk! ggnk!" noises just before the high note are him, jumping up and down on his effects pedals in an effort to render it less wussy.
That they still released the fucking thing despite 50% of the band and both its authors hating it sums up everything I hate about Radiohead.
re: 160.1
Yeah, it's ironic that there is a literal heavy metal connection. The whole Birmingham/Black Country heavy industry and heavy music thing.
On the guitar thing:
Not so much the barre chords, but the use of down tuned or drop tuned guitars, so he can make really huge sounding single note lines or riffs using just a few strings. That's definitely a lasting Iommi legacy, and is pretty what has been copied by every grunge/metal/stoner-rock player, ever. And the palm muted riffs combined with single note fills, which he uses much more than others did at the time, and which makes such a small band sound so massive.
Also, because of his rubber finger tips, he uses light strings, which makes the down-tuning slightly less stable and the intonation sloppier than today's contemporary metal players who'd be using 7 or 8 string guitars, or longer scale lengths with heavier strings to play the same notes which makes for a tighter but (imho) less interesting sound.
Great clip of him talking about it and demoing his sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BohveBasJ1w
especially towards the second half of the clip.
Ah, I often forget that you are an infinitely more serious guitarist than I ever was.
I love talking about guitars and guitar playing. So any excuse! I've been playing 25 years, but I'm a bit jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none as a player. I talk a good game, though! Sort of OK at many genres but not great at any one -- although I've gigged as a metal player, and done orchestral/theatre stuff, sat classical exams, etc.
Blind Possum records did some interesting recordings of elderly MS blues musicians, here's Junior Kimbrough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXh9xeZH8R8
and RL Burnside
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZn8Tjl5bd8
From the UK, Blur and PJ Harvey, her album about war was very nice. From the 80s, Depeche Mode, Frankie Knuckles, and Eric B+Rakim were high points.
Instead of explaining that LZ are plagiarists of Willie Dixon's, tolerable only as nostalgia, I thought I'd link to interesting new-ish blues.
And the demographics remark.
Did the people who made that documentary about him nail the release timing or what?
or what?
I don't think they killed him, if that's what you're saying.
This thread is great! I had forgotten about Black Sabbath and I loved them so much in high school. Then I remembered Ozzy Osbourne and the nostalgic joy of "Crazy Train."
Black Sabbath is truly great. (My brother saw them with (open for???) Black Oak Arkansas in, I think, '73. My mom dropped him off. This is amusing to me.)
Did the people who made that documentary about him nail the release timing or what?
That's the kind of thing that motivates killers on tv shows.
In these discussions of art and copyright and plagiarism, I always think of this bit from Woody Allen's grossly under-rated Stardust Memories.
"I have a question for Mr. Roberts. Was the scene between you and Sandy Bates at the wax museum a homage to Vincent Price in 'House of Wax' ?"
"An homage? Not exactly. We stole it outright."
166: Instead of explaining that LZ are plagiarists of Willie Dixon's, tolerable only as nostalgia
BTW, the stuff in 96 is not about the appropriation of Willie Dixon and other classic blues, but much more specific instances of unattributed direct re-use of stuff from contemporaries (the link is to a Spirit song which arguably has the "Stairway to Heaven" guitar melody).
My comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I don't really have either the level of knowledge to judge, nor any real desire to do so. Interesting stuff, however, especially when looked at through the prisms of how cultures and genres actually work apart form all of the commercial aspect and who gets the fucking credit etc.
140: I am not sure Talking Heads and Elvis Costello are going to be your best options for making the case you like music from decades other than the '70s.
I know. Was joke.
174. Yeah, he sued LZ and got a considerable settlement-- I didn't read 96, don't remember which songs triggered the suit. He was an interesting guy, and Chess was an interesting business.
I grew up enjoying crappy-ass metal, and I've just started revisiting some of it, usually starting with some kid's remix. For some reason, I have more patience now for self-indulgent crap like Aerosmith or bits of VH than for LZ, which grates for me except for In Through the Out Door, objectively soulless and cruddy. Actually, soulless music from the seventies seems like it's held up pretty well-- I think this is unpopular to say here, but the Eagles, Supertramp, and even some Yes are all interesting to relisten to now. Did anything get said about James Taylor at the inaugural?
177: I'm not sure I get the "soulless" part here: I'd have thought that Yes is anything but soulless, though it's pretty sappy and self-indulgent. (Yeah, I was a huge Yes fan.) Let's see: is it soulless because it's so orchestrated? And therefore seems sort of clinical?
When I took issue upthread over Zeppelin not belonging in the same category as the other bands listed in 58, I was chiefly thinking that Zeppelin isn't metal, and the rest of them are (except Aerosmith). That seems correct to me. And if that's true, I can't compare them as to which is better. Sabbath is great at metal. I annoyed the hell out of my freshman year roommates in college by playing some particular song -- don't remember which one -- a little too often in our room.
All James Taylor ever wants to do is replace the line with "thinkin' 'bout pussy and glasses of beer" and the fact that he has wanted to for thirty years and never has in concert will drive him to an early grave. true fact.
177: I have more patience now for self-indulgent crap like Aerosmith or bits of VH than for LZ
That sounds like a surfeit of patience to me. Especially regarding the Van Halen.
There is some incredibly good Van Halen that IMO holds up well, particularly the first two albums, and I defy anyone to not like "Unchained." The musicianship is just that good.
I don't really like Aerosmith much, and the Eagles* and Supertramp* are both way way over the horrible line for me.
*Both of them are the poster children for "inexplicably super-successful but unbelievably terrible variant of an actually interesting genre going on at around that time," country rock and prog respectively.
|| NMM to Scott Brown filling John Kerry's senate seat, you pervs.|>
Aerosmith's crime is staying around a couple or three decades past their expiration date to release so much shitty music. But: Rocks, Get Your Wings, and Toys in the Attic are great albums.
Led zepplin are a good band. The movie that they made is pretty horrible considering how good "live at the bbc" and "how the west was won" are.
Has anyone linked to the AV Club's recent piece about the astonishing crappiness of David Lee Roth's singing on "Runnin' with the Devil" yet?
The first couple Van Halen albums are great! (But it has nothing to do with muscianship for me. They just make me happy in some kind of thumos-related way.) And maybe now "Runnin' with the Devil" will replace "Black Dog" on autorepeat in my head. I hope.
"Musicianship" there is more like "Madeleine-like evocation of the sophomore girls class of Agoura Hills high School."
Musicianship and girls of Agoura Hill high school don't always go well together.
er Agoura High School, I guess. Is that different from Agoura Hills High School?
The first couple of VH albums are indeed excellent, as is Roth's first solo album, too. EVH's playing on the first couple is so good. Not so much for the flash soloing, the pick harmonics and the tapping [fun as it is] but for his rhythm playing and the way he switches between lead fills and riffs. His timing is great. He has a Hendrix-like sort of swing/rnb feel to the timing that most hard-rock players don't.
Also, they must have known that outfit was daft even at the time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_64mpfHPyI
192 -- I'm not up on the technicalities, I didn't go there, but it was basically an earthly paradise in the late 1980s.
(While trying to explain this to the GF, I googled on the phone "hot A/Goura Hills high school sophomore pics" which was not a good idea for so so so many reasons).
193: "I'm Doctor Rockso! I do cocaine!"
Huh. The descriptions of it I have heard would not be easily summarized as "earthly paradise". But then, my friends who went there were nerds.
(What, Sifu? Your friends who did a version of the school fight song that changes time signatures like eight times in order to mess with the cheerleaders were nerds? Fie you say!)
197: You mean the schlubs in the untucked shirts and saggy shorts?
I like the Aerosmith song "jaded". Most of their post 70s stuff is pretty mediocre though.
It is tough for bands whose fans don't buy albums anymore to make new music. At a certain point your fans just want to hear the songs they liked when they were younger. I can't blame Aerosmith for chasing after new fans.
It is tough for bands whose fans don't buy albums anymore to make new music.
Obligatory BNL (by analogy to "obligatory XKCD" suggesting that the referenced content is both relevant and not to be taken too seriously).
I never thought I would ever miss
And the crowd would always
Holler for more
But now it seems all that people
Want is what I used to be
And every time I try to do
Something new, all they want is 1973
187 and 195 are both starting my weekend off right.
No, thank you.
Don't worry, I don't expect it to become a thing.
I hadn't clicked through 187. That's great. He's self-St. Sanders'd.
http://www.stsanders.com/www/pages/videos/band-shreds/sts-van-halen.php
If this is the random news thread, is everyone aware of the new "conservative" alternative to FB, free from all of FB's "censorship" and "abuse"?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/tea-party-community_n_2598171.html
Sure sure to click through to the actual site, which sure looks like a copyright violation to me, insofar as it's clearly a copy of FB.
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I have done almost nothing productive all week, despite having lots of deadlines pending. Hopefully, I will behave better next week. Or quit impulsively and get a job as a waitress in a truck stop someplace.
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Voices of East Anglia is always pretty good, but today's is great:
http://www.voicesofeastanglia.com/2013/02/wheels-of-man-1972-catalogue.html
Check the cycling outfit for Sifu.
http://www.voicesofeastanglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Wheels-of-Man-006.jpg
206: Also note it offers to log in via facebook
208: they have apparently mastered riding in heels.
207: I have also done very little productive this week (and generally felt kind of bleh as well). My deadlines are not immediately pressing, but I will need to get more done next week.
At least it's Friday.
207: If it makes you feel any better I fried three power supplies today. Had a minor electrical fire and everything. Net progress for the day would have been negative except I figured out how to get out of about three day's worth of work for next week.
I've done a fair bit this week, but am sliding further and further back on projects. Partly because I'm shit at delegating, partly because I'm struggling to concentrate at length as doing too many jobs (and procrastinating/cherry-picking the more interesting bits), and partly because I need more underlings (or differently skilled underlings).
I've done a fair bit this week, but am sliding further and further back on projects. Partly because I'm shit at delegating, partly because I'm struggling to concentrate at length as doing too many jobs (and procrastinating/cherry-picking the more interesting bits), and partly because I need more underlings (or differently skilled underlings).
On the bright side your commenting volume is up.
I made a music-related comment in the other thread, suffering from thread confusion.
I want to share the Doobie Brothers: this is from a compilation album called In Harmony which I listened to a lot when I worked as a 16-year-old in the municipal youth library. The kids seriously loved the album, which we'd play aloud during the late afternoon in the library. In all these years, I never realized that song was by the Doobie Brothers. Something .. switched over, changed, in me when I listened to that album. How can you not relent and smile?
I was just looking online as well for "A friend for all seasons" by George Benson off that album, but can't find it. My own recording of the album is long lost, I think, a crappy old cassette tape.
I don't know whether parents today would find the album -- and apparently there's a sequel, In Harmony 2 -- nice for their kids. Today, decades later.
Parsimon, that's what a fool believes.
Here's Al Jarreau, "One Good Turn" off that album. So nice.
One more from that album. "I have a Song" by Lucy Simon, Carly's sister.
Let's get this George Benson party started!
221: Anybody else would surely know.
221/3: God damn you both to hell. Argh!
207, 211-213: It must say something about me that although I completed both superficially and substantively important tasks during this workweek, I'm more relieved by my success in not being constantly late to the office, and by my having finished tonight the novel for a book club meeting which took place last weekend.
re: 222
Surely this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbpReb8LTfA
Not only does he play a mean guitar but he can do it on roller skates in a white dinner jacket.
Is Benson the only person with that sort of dual career? Multi-platinum selling smooth/cheesy vocalist, _and_ monster jazz player with all the chops?
Plus slightly odd Jefferson Airplane covers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUuDAOaBT64
230. You might make an argument for Clapton, much as I dislike him personally; s/jazz/blues/
re: 230
[Ditto on not being a Claptout fan]
I suppose. I'd guess there's more of a continuum between Clapton's early blues stuff, and his more pop successes. And while he was a pretty fiery blues player in his day [Beano, Fresh Cream, etc], I don't know if he stood in relation to blues (in terms of playing ability) in quite the same way as Benson did to his genre. But yeah, I suppose there's a broad similarity there.
232. When I went to your link in 228, there was a clip in the sidebar of Benson, Clapton and BB King playing together on Rock Me. They're all outstanding. Benson crosses over very comfortably and plays a mean blues, and Clapton plays as well as I've ever heard him. Then King comes in and leaves them both in his dust - perhaps not fair, it isn't a cutting contest - but his tone and phrasing is such as what others might dream of.
I suppose they are playing on King's turf, so to speak. I know of the three which I'd choose to listen to if I could only choose one (King, naturally).
That said, neither King or Clapton would have the remotest hope in hell of playing over 'changes' (or playing really fast single line stuff in general) in the way that would be effortless for Benson. Saying that, I prefer Benson's more soul-jazzy stuff from the 60s when it has a bit more in common with BB. King et al than the really shredding slick stuff from the early 70s white-suit era where his technique is really outstanding, but the music a bit 'muzak'.
FWIW, I saw Clapton backing Smokey Robinson on 'Later' a while ago, and he was also excellent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LswORBE1Wic
Smokey's voice sounding pretty great for a guy who was 70.
Shit. There's one incredibly obvious person.
Louis Armstrong.
231 seems plausible.
Wikipedia-ing didn't lead me to any other plausible candidates but on the other hand I never knew that it was Scientology what as ruined Chick Corea.
And Nat Cole.
Viz, the Cole playing piano on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScMaBR0jF0o
Or this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCEcDhF2LSo
Versus 'Unforgettable', say.
A friend and I had a long discussion of whether Scientology causes musicians to suck. I started with Chic Corea as evidence that Scientology leads to sucking, but when we went through all the examples of musicians involved with Scientology and the onset of their sucking, we could not identify a firm correlation.
From what I just read about Chick Corea, it sounds like his decision to start sucking after joining Scientology was a personal one.
To be fair, is it realy Chick Corea sucking, specifically? Or a whole swathe of musicians getting seduced by the siren lure of bad synths* and fretless basses, and proggy fusion?
* Exceptions for the likes of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPdPK_rIseY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY9rhaYkud0
But Hancock seems to have largely chosen not to suck.
Looking at wiki, the Scientologist musicians include Beck (always a Scientologist, iirc?), and Isaac Hayes (best known music all pre-Scientology), and it looks Corea was already flirting with Scientology when he was recording Bitches Brew and In A Silent Way.
Awesome synths!
I like a lot of fusion, actually, so maybe I am not the right person to be making this claim. I was more thinking about, like, '80s Chick Corea where it devolved into unfunky, muzacky terribleness.
(Was I rocking out to this album earlier this morning? MAYBE I WAS.)
Also I love Herbie Hancock but he has made some fucking sucky album as of the past twenty years, not to worry.
I like the very early 70s fusion, when it had more in common with funk (of the Sly Stone/George Clinton variety) and it was the sort of music you could dance to. It quite quickly gets into proggy wank, though.
I had a friend who did jazz piano stuff who kind of half became a Scientologist because of Chick Corea. When she left, they aggressively stalked her for like 2 years.
247: yeah honestly a lot of it I'm like "this is so great!" for the first couple minutes and then rapidly get bored with all the changes. If you listen to it as a collection of potential samples, it's all terrific.
Re: Benson, David Sanborn? I don't know if he was ever a monster, but he studied with Julius Hemphill and Roscoe Mitchell and has played with Tim Berne.
Did this get linked anywhere? http://youtu.be/tPqL-1aSbn0 Somewhat amusing.
That's an amazing lineup of guests for that episode.
re: 253
That is pretty ridiculous.
Hiram Bullock, too. Who I saw playing with a Czech band one New Year about 10 years ago, and was pretty amazing -- hugely fat, totally charismatic. They gave him a 'spot' in the show. He sort of wallowed around the stage wiggling his arse at the crowd and playing like Hendrix, complete with the guitar behind the head.
In fact, this actual gig:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdLjtR4j5TA
Although that's a badly dubbed record rather than the music from the gig which while sort rewarmed-funk, was much more Zappa-esque (so pretty Czech).
For those interested: Dave Weigel has an interesting piece on prog rock in Slate.
if ever a form of popular music dropped dead suddenly, it was prog. Progressive rock essentially disappeared, and has remained in obscurity for 35 years, ridiculed by rock snobs, ignored by fans, its most famous artists--Yes, King Crimson, ELP, Jethro Tull--catchphrases for pretentious excess.
Rock historians wished it all away. The Rock Snob's Dictionary, originally serialized in Vanity Fair, defined prog as the "single most deplored genre of postwar pop music."...
The laugh-and-gawk-and-parody approach is fun but doesn't explain why this music was popular, much less why critics liked it. Progressive rock, in its various forms, evolved out of psychedelia, out of classical music, and out of jazz fusion. In every case, its practitioners became obsessed with sounds and technologies and song structures and took them as far as they could. Pop songs became four- or five-part pop symphonies, with preludes and codas and repeating themes. Wasn't this where music was supposed to go?
I managed to miss the memo myself, back in the day, that prog was wussy (or whatever), so it dawned on me only gradually that it was supposed to be embarrassing, and came as a complete surprise.
Oh, sorry, I just realized that Weigel piece is from August 2012. There's a Part II linked at the bottom of it, and maybe the series goes on beyond that.
Interesting, anyway.
Weigel says Prog is dead and still lives, but in obscurity? Schrödinger's genre?
Prog has changed in the past 40 years (forty!), but proggish stuff is still around. Here's a track from The Mars Volta, a new-prog group.
The Mars Volta, a new-prog group that just broke up after more than a decade.
I didn't want to belt the dead thread with comments, but it appears to be a 5-part series by Weigel, which culminates with something about where prog lives now. I haven't read it yet.
Is Modest Mouse prog rock? I'm not very good at categorizing music.
Yeah, a nephew was heartsick about the The Mars Volta break up. Which also show that music like this is popular with (some) high schoolers.
My opinion, FWIW, is that Modest Mouse is mostly proggy.
The Mars Volta linked piece isn't bad -- I hadn't heard them before.
If you like your prog more atmospheric, there's Piano Magic, "No Closure", or "The Fun of the Century". They have some harder, more rockin' stuff, but I can't remember what it's called.
The problem is that Weigel doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Seriously, that article sucked, and also I don't think much of The Mars Volta either!
I recommend almost all of the Cuneiform roster unreservedly.
263: I dunno, man, it's a five-part series, so I'm going to reserve judgment. I found it interesting because dammit, it's true, how come everyone loved prog for a time and then suddenly it's the most embarrassing thing in the world? The advent of irony or something?
Anyway, I am in search of more better contemporary prog.
The advent of irony or something?
I just bet, too.
The problem is that Weigel doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.
Based on a relatively limited sample, I think Weigel is (that he's rated at all means he overrated, I think). I'd be happy to have my mind changed about that, but it would take some doing.
The advent of irony or something?
Canonically, punk rock, which is actually pretty earnest (no?) but even that's extremely simplified and is incapable of making sense of the connections between the canterbury scene and (e.g.) This Heat, or, say, Fripp playing with Blondie, for the Gang of Four, selling out the Kitchen, and interviewing/being interviewed by Joe Strummer, the existence of Television and No New York, and the actual personnel who played on Never Mind the Bollocks and a whole bunch of other things (I read an interview with Chris Cutler where he recounts being chummy with the punks after Henry Cow broke up) such that if you encounter anyone purveying that particular line, you should immediately be aware that they actually don't know what they're talking about; you should also, for good measure, give Christgau a sock on the jaw if you get a chance, just for good measure.
I admit that I can't be too sorry that ELP went out of style.
You think Weigel is what, VW? What?!
Oops. Overrated, that's what he is.
Christgau
Fucking Christagu. Anyhow presumably prog was forced to go underground as math rock because fractals.
How Weigel, who presumably was not hired as a music critic and is in this regard (still presumably!) just some guy with slightly unusual taste, ended up with a brief to write a five-part series on prog rock is, sadly, not beyond comprehension. However, if any other washington-based publications want to publish stuff on prog, they could do worse than to look to Brandon Wu, who actually does have a long history writing about music and now writes (mostly, I think, about metal?) for the City Paper.
In fact it would be interesting to have Wu's take on the series once it's concluded.
Anyhow presumably prog was forced to go underground as math rock because fractals.
But even there, you know, even in the 80s you had Thinking Plague and 5uu's and Motor Totemist Guild and interesting developments in metal and the beginnings of post-rock, and and.
The Fractal Geometry of Nature was published in 1982. It all fits!
I'm inclined to agree with VW about Weigel. I never used to read him, but now that my workday procrastination is basically limited to Slate I've started to, and I'm not all that impressed. He's better than the average Beltway political reporter, but still definitely part of that world, and a lot of his posts are basically just him getting quotes from various politicians on whatever the big story of the day happens to be. Even his more analytical posts, while often interesting and perceptive, are sometimes oddly off-base. This recent example particularly caught my eye for obvious reasons; it's certainly true that Begich polling ahead of Treadwell is interesting and surprising, but Weigel for some reason describes Treadwell as just "a guy with an R after his name" when he's actually a well-known and popular statewide official who should have a very good chance of unseating Begich.
275: agreed on all counts. Weigel doesn't seem to have anything like deep knowledge of the state of play, which, given his job, is genuinely frustrating, and he's apparently not smart enough to provide analysis that's very different from the bloggy conventional wisdom. He's the polar opposite of Brian Beutler, whose work is almost always outstanding, and from whom I learn something quite regularly.
In short, political reportage should either tell me something I don't know or explain what I do know in a way that I hadn't previously considered. If it doesn't do either of those things, it's not worth reading.
he's apparently not smart enough to provide analysis that's very different from the bloggy conventional wisdom
I don't know if it's because he's not smart enough or what, but this is definitely true of his analysis. To return to the post I mentioned before, he notes that Begich is outpolling Treadwell and that this is surprising since Begich is supposed to be one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators, but he provides no explanation whatsoever for this. The post he links attributes it to Treadwell's low name recognition, which is at least an explanation, though one that undermines the relevance of this poll. I'm skeptical about both the low name recognition (my impression is that Treadwell is pretty well known even though as lieutenant governor he doesn't play a major role in state politics) and the poll overall, which I haven't seen reported anywhere in the local media. That might just be because the legislative session just started and the people who know a lot about Alaska politics have better things to do than discuss hypothetical matchups for an election over a year away. In any case, none of this would be apparent from Weigel's post, which instead just notes the poll result with a "golly, that's weird" attitude.
The real problem is that I can't hear Alaska and Treadwell without thinking of this guy.
Heh. That honestly did not occur to me. They're not related, AFAIK.
My BiL, who is an unashamed prog rock devotee and has practically a complete collection of the genre, goes to see Yes, King Crimson, Deep Purple and former members whenever he can. He has to book way in advance because they always sell out.
If anybody cares, Yes are touring America in March/April, including a prog rock cruise. It's probably too late to get tickets.
re: 281
Yeah. There's a lot of people still keen on that stuff. A friend was recently just trying to persuade me of the excellence of very early ELP. I never had any time for it although obviously too young for the first time round, my parents had some Yes records and the like. But the Canterbury scene type stuff (and even some Pink Floyd), and the prog/post-punk sort of overlaps that nosflow alludes to in 268 are pretty great. It's not the idea of musicians trying to do 'progressive' things with song structure, or musicianship in popular music that's the problem. It's just the way it developed in the 70s that doesn't interest.
Oh the Canterbury scene was awesome. Soft Machine was one of the best gigs I ever saw (opening for Hendrix, believe it or not). And Gong etc. were quite interesting too. I think my BiL saw Daevid Allen a couple of years ago and said he was "the same as ever".
Prog?
Progarchives is still around, a little fanboyish but if you read the reviews and articles deeply and critically you can learn a fuckton about prog, past and present.
Just takes time, and I don't mean twenty hours a week but 15 minutes a week for ten years.
I am the Morning from Russia sounds interesting, my style:female vocal, acoustic/electronic and neo-symphonic/pastoral. Then I would try to find something to listen to, youtube or pandora or whatever.
There is an Internet out there. It's wonderful.
Somewhere on the other place in conversation w/ David Auerbach I commented that despite absolutely adoring King Crimson (and liking such bands as Gentle Giant) I never had much time for Yes until I heard "Heart of the Sunrise". He commented that that's because "Heart of the Sunrise" sounds like King Crimson.
I still think that King Crimson was head and shoulders above ELP and Yes. Only not knowing much about Genesis prevents me from adding them to the latter list.
Gong recently (ok, several years ago) released an album with Acid Mothers Temple.
I think members of Gong might have been involved with drugs at some point.
I always confuse ELO and ELP, which I don't feel a bit bad about, but how much awesomer would it be to combine ELO and ELP?
I just got a hunch when listening to them this morning.
There were tentative plans for HELM—Hendrix, Emerson, Lake, and Mitchell.
Probably wouldn't have been as great as if Hendrix had played with Miles Davies, though.
Sifu, I have it on good authority that the members of Gong never blow yr trip forever.
I haven't listened to that song in a while! Stunning revelation as I just put it on: the very beginning, until right after the miaow-like noise that (I assume) is Allen's doing, sounds like it could be the intro to a Sun City Girls tune.
What's that signature ELP song that I found super profound or beautiful or something when I was in high school? I bought the CD with the complicated packaging.
I've always thought it would be fun to have a volksmarch from here to here.
295. Let me guess, "Lucky Man". You were in high school, right?
I just bet that devious heebie was in high school when she was in high school, too.
287 In (unrelated?) news, My Bloody Valentine released an album yesterday.
295: "Killer" by Van Der Graaff Generator
After reading that article, I have no idea what prog rock is.
The ELP album was definitely brain salad surgery. So whatever song from there that was getting airtime on classical radio stations in the early 90s.
I mean, the songs from that article simply aren't widely ridiculed. That's the line-up that classic rock stations used to draw heavily from.
Classic, not classical, in 302.
Neither of us was around at the time but I am pretty sure that "Tarkus" and "Tales From Topographic Oceans" were widely ridiculed.
302: Karn Evil 9 1st Impression Part 2?
"Tales from Topographic Oceans" was a #1 record in the UK, and RIAA Gold a year after it was released.
That doesn't mean it wasn't widely ridiculed, of course, but it should give some perspective.
Are you talking about the article linked in 295?
I am pretty sure that "Tarkus" and "Tales From Topographic Oceans" were widely ridiculed
They were? I wasn't listening to them when they came out, so I don't personally know one way or the other, but I'd be a little surprised.
Karn Evil 9 1st Impression Part 2
YES. Welcome to the show that never ends!
308: Things can be popular and ridiculed simultaneously.
Right -- it's just a question of when the voices of the ridiculers drown out the fans.
Ah, nosflowned a bit. "Tarkus" came out when I was in high school and completely in thrall to ELP (Emerson in particular--I also had some of his old stuff with The Nice). Some time I should go back and listen to it and try to figure out what I heard in it. Their take on "Pictures at an Exhibition" later that year made even more of an impression and I paid extra to get an "import" version before it was released in the US. Around that time I also went to see them in concert, not the memorable other than Emerson's antics. I also loved me some Yes, but "Tales" was the end of that.
Personally, it was all pretty much footnotes to "21st Century Schizoid Man" which blew my mind when I first heard it in ways nothing else had when I first heard it at age 15 or 16. I don't know where or how, probably via my older sister; I'm pretty sure it did not get any airplay i my neck of the woods at the time
First heard it, first heard it, first heard it.
"21st Century Schizoid Man" which blew my mind when I first heard it in ways nothing else had when I first heard it at age 15 or 16
Yeah (I first heard it when I was 15 or 16 as well, though it was 10 years after it had come out).
I couldn't tell you what I heard first, whether Yes or Crimson or ELP or Pink Floyd or what, but whatever started me off led me all over the place in rapid fashion. It occurs to me that this was in part because I'd decided that I could no longer stand Top 40 radio -- it was the early 80s -- and since I'd begun working in the local library, whoa: a whole section of albums to peruse.
Sorry for the nostalgic indulgence, but as I recall, I started working my way through the Rolling Stone 5-star album list at the time, so I sampled a lot of things. The Clash, Sandinista, I didn't care for. The Band by The Band: good stuff. I think there may have been some Police (The Police) in there, which was okay but not earthshaking. In the end I followed album notes: Greg Lake? Who's this Greg Lake person? Remember this was before the internet, so you had to talk to your friends and do research in, like, books and at the record store. It was fun.
Dunno how I came around to also listening -- with ambivalence -- to the Moody Blues, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, and, uh, Firesign Theater.
Actually I totally know how I encountered those.
275: the anti-Weigel. Actually, Weigel will write this story two or three weeks from now. I just wonder if he'll think then that he came up with it all on his own.
Yeah, I saw that. Seems like he was serious about this.
317: he claims he is, and I hope so. But really, I think Beutler is now the star of that site.
Yeah, Beutler's great. This is quite interesting and definitely moves well beyond the conventional wisdom, whether or not it actually turns out to be accurate.
That's a great picture. The photographer caught McConnell right as his head retracts into his body.
319: totally agree. And what makes it great is that Beutler isn't predicting anything. He's saying, "this is what it might look like is this thing that's dead for now is to come back to light." He's a genuinely good reporter and analyst.
316: good story, but it's been obvious that's how things were going to go since, like, November 5th. I don't think the Rs will experience many problems reining in the far right. Note how everyone fell in line behind Romney, and how little noise was made about the fiscal cliff deal and the postponement of the debt limit. My impression is that it's a very organized and hierarchical party and a good amount of the populist/Tea Party stuff is simply astroturf. But we'll see. The Rs have an excellent shot at the Senate in 2014 if they stay disciplined.
319: Good to make the CFPB-filibuster link but he doesn't even mention the possibility that Cordray will be confirmed in exchange for changes in the CFPB structure, like making it a commission or making it subject to Congressional appropriations. If the Ds/Administration agreed to both of those changes I think there's no doubt the Rs would confirm Cordray; they might even do it for one of the two. The President opposes but the Rs can make that offer when Reid comes at them for being obstructionist. Then does Reid change the filibuster rules around that disagreement when he is potentially just a year away from losing the Senate majority?
Whoops, sorry, Beutler does mention the structural change issue right up top. But I think he dismisses it too quickly. Unfortunately, there might be some give there.
In fairness to Weigel, his prediction that Scott Brown wouldn't run for Kerry's seat (made when that was very much not the conventional wisdom) turned out to be spot on. But he may have gotten lucky with that one.
I have just remembered that I saw Chick Corea and John McLaughlin play the Barbican; lots of power and quite a bit of funk, and not really proggy at all, but sadly the Barbican crowd isn't exactly swinging at the best of times...
Yeah. I've only been to one gig at the Barbican, I think. Can't say the venue made a great impression as a place to see live music.
I love early McLaughlin (before Mahavishnu, mostly), but almost every time I hear his new (electric) stuff I find it a bit disappointing. Would still be good to see him play, though.
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Looks like they've identified Richard III to a reasonable level of confidence.
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328. Um, not exactly. He seems to have suffered from scoliosis, which corresponds to at least some contemporary descriptions, but the classic hunchbacked condition is described as kyphosis.
So he wasn't hunchbacked. Good for him. I bet he killed those kids though.
Probably. He certainly had four other people executed without trial. Mediaeval princes were like that.
He still shouldn't have killed them, I say.
I was thinking that the late 15th century was a little late to be medieval, but wikipedia tells me that the English Renaissance begins with the battle of Bosworth Field. Richard was so wicked that they had to kill him to end the middle ages.
On the other hand, he was responsible for having the law of the land printed in English for the first time; he instituted bail for people awaiting trial; he created a legal channel for people who couldn't afford lawyers to have their grievances heard; and he abolished censorship of printed books. In the space of about 18 months.
Fuck half a dozen dead aristocrats against that lot.
That's pretty quick off the mark for the abolishing censorship of printed books, as the number of books printed in England before his death must have been tiny.
Checking, there seem to be less than 200 incunabula (just the sound of that word is great) listed for London, and I'd guess many/most of those are after Richard's death.
Wikipedia is daft if it says that. How do you define "the beginning of the renaissance"? I would argue that the whole period of the Yorkists and Henry VII was sort of transitional. Caxton established his press in the reign of Edward IV. But it remained solidly feudal until the reformation.
329: Do you know how much kyphosis shows in skeletons? I assume experts are good at things like that, but I have a semi-deliberate blind spot. Just looking at the skeleton picture, I had to look away rather than think too about how it compared to my own x-rays, but I liked that they had his tailbone sort of out of alignment and I wonder what a more 3-D layout might show. (I should really get over any squeamishness or denial or whatever this is, but I haven't.)
Unrelated to any of that, I saw my favorite company truck again on my way in today. It's a small operation called THE TREE FELLERS and I'm pretty sure that's a deliberate joke, but maybe not.
The 'criticism of the idea of the English Renaissance' part of the article suggests that the article is a bad idea.
334. Yes, I suspect there must have been some special restrictions on printing that he lifted, I can't imagine an entirely censorship free press at that date. I can't find the actual statute (which I might even understand, since it would be in English). But everything I can find on line mentions it. He also appears to have standardised weights and measures. He was a busy lad.
336.Thorn, I'm afraid I have no idea how much kyphosis shows up in skeletons. But they seem pretty confident about diagnosing AIS in this case. At least to the point of standing up and announcing it; I haven't seen the documentation, obviously.
The first book published in England seems to be Caxton's edition of Chaucer in 1476. That would make Richard's being the first person to print the laws in English both more and less impressive. I think he may have had the laws translated from French into English, which seems like good work.
NYT story on Richard III's putative bones.
He clearly seems to have had some kind of reform/modernisation programme in mind. Edward IV had been primarily concerned with drinking and fucking, but apart from that with modernising commercial and manufacturing law, so Richard's programme dovetails nicely with that, making the law transparent and less risky to litigators. It rather suggests that if Bosworth had gone the other way, the next twenty or thirty years might mot have been so different in practice.
