but this just creeps me out for some reason.
Man, the Seventies were just messed up.
[And yes, Barbara, I can hear you in the backround yelling "Yeah, but the Eighties rocked!" while holding up your limited edition AC/DC bic lighter. Let the reader understand.]
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
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12 comments:
My dear Fr.Hollywood, the 70's were graced with the brilliance of early Kansas, Styx, ELO and Genesis. Not to mention the greatness of prog and British pastoral rock, to-wit: Barclay James Harvest, King Crimson, Yes, Renaissance, Gentle Giant and Nektar. And then there was Zappa..ahh, a musical age when giants walked the earth.
Fr.Watson
the Kansas Kopperhead
Dear Fr. Watson, King of the Kopperheads and a churchmen to the churchmen:
Yes, indeed. And of course, many of The Who's most powerful and brilliant anthems came from this decade. It had its upside.
And yet, lest we forget, this was also the age of shag carpet, orange formica counters, lava lamps, Diff'rent Strokes, Roe vs. Wade, wide ties and lapels, open neck silk shirts and gold chains, Disco, the Jackson Five, Andy Gibb, Michael Bolton, leisure suits, and those kooky uniforms of the World Football League.
Hopefully, "we won't get fooled again." ;-)
Ah you guys.
I'm still getting used to the idea that confessional Lutherans can like Rock in any form!
That's got less to do with confessional Lutheranism than with being old enough to remember the entire history of Rock, which in my ears started with bad white covers of black music and went downhill from there.
Now for some Jimi "Red House".
Hey, the fashion was awful, as were Kansas, Journey, and Styx. But the Jackson 5 were great! And the Stones put out Exile on Main Street, Dylan did "Blood on the Tracks," David Bowie put out a slew of great albums. (And wasn't Bolton big in the 80's?).
Btw, Shatner had, believe it or not, a very well reviewed album just a couple of years ago, on which is included a version of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
Elder:
That reminds me of being a kid in the 1960s and playing my dad's old 45s.
My dad (Class of '57) epitomized late fifties/early sixties rock and roll. In the early 60s, he had a '57 Chevy with a record player mounted on the hump - wired to the ignition, and with the carpet cut around it. He and my mother would cruise around playing 45s - which I was later to play on my little red record player.
In particular, I remember playing Chuck Berry's "Maybelline" and (especially) Frankie Ford's "Sea Cruise" (it had a white label with a big ace of spades on it - which makes a heckuva impression on a four-year old). As it turns out, Frankie Ford is a native of Gretna, Louisiana - where I now live (and he is still around). It seems that "Sea Cruise" was actually recorded just a few blocks from the house I live in now. "Hoo-wee baby!"
I also remember an LP of calypso music, and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass's "The Lonely Bull". That kind of music seemed to be big in the early 60s.
The 70s brought "hi-fi" in the form of 8-track players. I remember like yesterday my dad's clunky cartridges made of "space age" plastic, especially the way they "ker-chunked" awkwardly on the channel changes - which you could effect manually at the touch of a button. There was: Jose Feliciano, Richard Harris ("A Tramp Shining" - which included the bizarre tune "MacArthur Park"), the Beatles' Blue Album, and (later on) the Eagles' "Hotel California".
I spent the late 70s and early 80s working in my aunt's restaurant. I came to appreciate rock and roll even more due to my unique high school teacher, Clem Caraboolad, who taught religion and math at Walsh Jesuit High School. All over the school, you could hear hyper-amplified music blaring out of his room: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, the soundtrack to Easy Rider, etc. He also rode a Harley, and taught us how to shoot pool. He was a football coach, an expert in Zen Buddhism, and a godly Christian man - and we loved him.
My first record purchase with my own money was an 8-track of Pink Floyd's "The Wall." But that was 1980, and so endeth the reminiscences of the 1970s. Thanks be to God.
Peter:
Good points, though I have to wince a little at the juxtaposition of the words "Jackson 5" and "great." Uhhhh, hmmmm, errrrr, I just can't quite get there with you.
William Shatner is an amazing man, isn't he? Somehow, he continues to reinvent himself all the time, and never fades away. He has a great sense of humor and doesn't take himself too seriously.
I do remember hearing his rendition of "Lucy". Do you remember Sebastian Cabot's ("Mr. French") Bob Dylan tribute album? His version of "It Ain't Me Babe" is a scream. However, I don't think he intended it as a comedy.
Yeah, Shatner's great. Who'd have thought he'd still be around. His character on "Boston Legal," is classic (though it's become so predictably liberal and preachy that I've pretty much given up on it).
And if you're not a Jackson 5 fan, I suppose you loved the Osmonds. Fair enough.
Um...Shatner's great? Did you watch this video? He's almost as bad as Keanu Reeves!
And just think...the generation that brought us this is the generation that's running the world right now. Scary...
My dear Past Elder,
Though I think you may be a little hard on classic prog rock of the 70s, I must commend your fine taste in other artists I truly appreciate: Basie, MJQ, Wagner and Oscar Peterson (R.I.P.).
If I wasn't a pastor with the requirement of working that one hour a week, I would spend my entire life listening to music.
Fr Watson SSP the Kansas Kopperhead
Here's my confession -- I've bought exactly one rock album in my entire life: Disraeli Gears, and that's because "Strange Brew" is a blues. Clapton eventually did learn to play blues like a bluesman and not a white guy who appreciated the roots of his own music. Ridin with the King, IMHO, is fabulous.
In a way, though, it was good. The experience of being more into Coltrane, Miles, etc when everyone else was into Rock is rather like being a confessional Lutheran around CCM types.
Interesting that just like Western music itself started with improvising over chants, Rock started with messing with the blues, which everyone knows is secular preachin'.
If I weren't so old, I'd become a pastor just to hoop a sermon right along with the chants.
Does that mean either of you reverend fathers will allow Siegfrieds Tod at my funeral?
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