Trindy

Thanks for pointing that out, Kirk. And missm, of course there are plenty of Eric's songs that break that mold...I just find it interesting that for the first two that became such big hits, he really did choose to "cut to the chase" like he did.

This will probably be a big "duh" to some people, but it was just this morning that I began to contemplate...the two biggest hits Eric wrote for Raspberries, the very first two, GATW and IWBWY...when you look at them, their structure is really kind of unusual because the verses in both of them are nothing but, well, single sentences/partial sentences...you get a sentence, then wham, right into the chorus...sentence, chorus...bridge, chorus. I mean, here are the "verses" to GATW: 1. Didn't know how complete love could be 'til she kissed me and said... 2. Couldn't say what I wanted to say 'til she whispered "I love you so..." And here are the verses to IWBWY: 1. If we were older we wouldn't have to be worried tonight 2. Someday's a long time and we've been waiting so long to be here Whereas, verses in many, many songs consist of four lines, each of which could be a sentence (or at least two) on its own. Just interesting. I'm wondering whether it was Eric's passion for the great rock 'n' roll single that is only two-plus-minutes long that caused him to come up with two early Raspberries songs that ended up as singles that both had very little in the way of verses, and pretty much got down to business with a big chorus very quickly...

Yeah, I'm draggin' along at the rear too...but Eric, it's no less sincerely meant. May you have a sunny and wonderful year, and maybe even bring some new music to the world to share with us (yeah, I'm greedy that way, but I think it'd do you good, too!). Happy Belated Birthday!

I don't know much about it, but get a load of this trailer for it...is this cool or what? Makes me want the game and I didn't even know it was coming out. http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-the-beatles/50198

danmichel, where do you get the information that the Hagood Hardy song "The Homecoming" was used in the TV-movie of the same name? My understanding is that it was originally written about a year after that movie came out, and that it was written for a Salada Tea commercial that ran in Canada. At least that's what I recall hearing, and what Googling tells me...I believe the matching titles of the two works are sheer coincidence.

I love the "My Girl" section too! The first time I actually listened to the whole symphony it just tickled me to death: out of nowhere comes that oh-so-familiar French horn melody, and all of a sudden, BINGO, I realize the second movement wasn't the only one Eric got inspiration from...

What I was going to say is, it was so nice of Major Nelson and Jeannie to let the boys borrow their house for a party...

Folks, when I said "bands are considered good (in Cleveland) ONLY if they are from out of town," I meant "considered good BY THE CRITICS"!! Not the local fans!! Obviously, many local fans support the local bands...especially anything Michael Stanley ever came up with...but the CRITICS do not. At least not until someone from New York or, perhaps, L.A. gives it his blessing and pronounces it therefore "cool"... Michael Stanley is not really cool with local critics. For one thing, he's too popular with average Clevelanders. See, one of the goals of all Cleveland rock critics is to transcend what they believe to be their hickish and unsophisticated hometown...they're embarrassed to be from here...they know that New Yorkers think they are provincial hicks, and they can't wait to prove it untrue--which they do by renouncing everything that has to do with Cleveland, and embracing only what has already received the Official Seal of Coolness from people in media centers. The local fans? They vary by who we are talking about. Some slavishly follow what others tell them; others like what they like; and others are homers for the locals and are suspicious of everything else.

Sadly, Eric is right about Cleveland music critics...they are terrified to say they like anything or anyone from Cleveland, for fear that New York critics (the arbiters of All Things Hip in Rock) will think them hickish and unsophisticated...it's part of our citywide inferiority complex. We can't possibly be homers for our own people...bands are considered good here ONLY if they are from out of town. *sigh*

Ah, shoulda known I'd find you here... You DO realize the only reasons people like Ann Coulter "sell" as many copies of their books as they do is that they are bought in bulk at a discount by conservative book clubs, then given away free with each new membership? Looks like even those clubs aren't buying as many as they used to...

I'm laughing at myself for having a brain lapse here. Greg's last name isn't Fleming, of course, it's Jenkins, and "Greg Jenkins" was the name on that camera case. It's quite interesting, actually. Of all the Olympic gold medalists in ladies' figure skating from the USA (and there have been seven of them so far), two of them are married to ex-skaters named Jenkins, and both of them are still happily married to those guys. Greg used to skate competitively (it was how he met Peggy), but quit relatively early without becoming a big name in the sport, and became a dermatologist. They're grandparents now. Then you have Carol Heiss, who married a guy from Akron--Hayes Alan Jenkins, who won the Olympic gold in 1956, four years before she did (his younger brother David won it in 1960, the same year as Carol). Carol lives in the Cleveland area now and has been married to the same guy for almost 50 years. Maybe they make up for poor Dorothy and her fate. Dorothy has not been able to find Mr. Right yet. Her first marriage was to Dean Paul Martin, and their feeling for each other appears to have been real, but he was just too much of a playboy ever to stay faithful to one woman and that ended after a couple of years. He died in that plane crash a few years later. Then she married a doctor who, sadly, seemed to regard Dorothy as his own personal ATM and a way to secure his own future in something other than medicine. He also had an interest in the ladies that he did not bother to attempt to control. Poor Dorothy--for all her success and fame, she seems to have had a lot of hard knocks in life, many of them self-inflicted by poor self-esteem. Yet she is beloved to this day by so many people. I went to a pro skating championship about 12 years ago in West Virginia, and when I told the cabdriver what I'd come there for, and that Dorothy was there, he got this big smile on his face. I'll never forget him saying, in his West Virginia accent, "Back when she won that gold medal, she coulda had me fer free!"

Eric, I'll be happy to pass on the news of your crush...if I should get anywhere near La Peggy... Funny thing was, I did get close to her husband once. No, not in THAT way, LOL. At the same show where I ended up getting a good chunk of my face on NBC because I was sitting in the first row right in front of a camera, Peggy was in the cast, and I spent some time between show tapings at a picnic bench outside the arena where some of the performers in the show were just hanging out biding their time between performances. No one had a problem with me sitting there; it was actually quite funny. I remember seeing a guy sit there for a while who had a camera with a bag labeled with his name, "Greg Fleming," and an address in Los Gatos, California, so I knew it was him. She didn't come by there then, though. But I did get to hear Robin Cousins tell some classic "blonde jokes." "How do you know when a blonde has been using your computer? Wite-Out on the screen." "How do you kill a blonde? Put spikes in her shoulder pads." Have to hand it to Peggy. She still looks pretty good after all these years, and on top of that, she's been married to the same guy since 1970.

Eric really hit the nail on the head as far as the Arista Records "guilt by association" thing is concerned...that was the most perfect description I think I've ever seen of everything I hate about those formulaic Arista hits. And Crg2, I think my first hints that ABM was going to be something out of the usual were twofold: 1. when I first saw Bert Convy singing it on the Carson show; and 2. when I saw Donny Osmond singing it on the Donny & Marie show. The "joke" was that Donny was singing it in a set that was supposed to be a park, and while he was singing it, all these people came in from out of nowhere, set up blankets and picnics and a volleyball net and so on around him, and began running around him and playing games and hitting him in the head with the volleyball while he continued to sing "All by myyyyyyseeeeeeelf..." Har dee har har...I thought: Oh no, is this what poor Eric has come to? (Of course, what Eric was coming to was a major "ka-chingggg..."

Yeah, both of these are pretty bland to me. Camilo doesn't seem to know what his lyrics mean and the arrangement is vanilla and uninteresting--they even got rid of the "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" motif, and then it just wanders off into eternity at the finish with that fadeout...The Timmy T. one is kind of novel in that it's the first duet treatment I've ever heard, which is a fine idea, but not executed so well here. I don't like the singers much, or the way they chose to interpret the lyrics or what they choose to "hit" vs. not "hit"...The arrangement is more faithful to the original, at least, but ouch, that cliched soprano sax solo in the middle! It's like, here you are trying to get something out of this duet, and all of a sudden out of nowhere, in wanders Kenny G...ugh.

Eric, if it's any comfort, the professional sports business has as many conflicts of interest as the music business. You take my favorite skater, who was represented for years by a certain famous sports marketing firm which shall be nameless (but you can find them down on East 9tth Street...I think you know who I mean). These people sign you up as a client, and then they of course contract with you to appear in THEIR ice shows, so THEY can make a profit off of it whenever you skate. Guess who decides how much you get paid to appear in those shows? Oh, and they also produce all the televised pro "competitions" (the ones the skaters compete in after they're not eligible for the Olympics anymore), so guess who decides how much money you will make for appearing in those competitions? Guess who can reduce their offer or refuse to renew your contract if they decide you're not so hot anymore? Guess who can decide after a few years that the latest people to come out of the Olympics are "hotter" than you, and therefore you have to accept a tiny contract and lowest billing in the show or go find yourself another agent? Oh, and guess which sports marketing company uses its massive size to eat up all its competitors through mergers and acquisitions so that it effectively eliminates all other ice shows in the country, leaving professional skaters with only one choice of which show to appear in if they want to go on tour? I'm glad my fave is out of it. I think he's much happier now coaching the stars of the future. Anyway, my question for you is: have you ever considered letting US, the fans, finance your next release? It's what some bands are doing, you know. Collecting money from their most devoted fans to get a new CD recorded and out on the market. Then, if they actually sell any copies of it to anyone else but the fans, it's gravy. But at least it's out there and you know someone appreciates it. I'd be thrilled to pony up money for the Raspberries to record again. Granted, I can't cough up the whole cost myself, but I'd be willing to throw money in the kitty.