JohnO

Bernie - Thanks for all you did on this board for us! It was fun while it lasted.

LC - I'm still alive and kicking. Agree with you completely about the vile abomination living in the White House who continues to drag this country down.

Bernie - I understand perfectly if you or Marv or anyone else doesn't care for a band's music. That's fine - different strokes, and so on.........and God knows, I don't like the music of a number of bands/acts myself, many of whom are hugely popular. What confuses me is bringing extraneous or seemingly irrelevant things into the equation. Why, for example, the need to compare Big Star vs Raspberries? Because a critic or two over the years, to simplify his explanation of power pop, lumped the two of them together? Every Big Star fan I've ever met also loves Raspberries and Eric......and usually, Raspberries fans are pretty enthusiastic about Big Star as well. There are always exceptions. To me, saying "I've listened to Big Star, and I don't care for their music - it doesn't move me," is OK. Saying they suck because Raspberries are better is a whole different kettle o' fish, though. If we apply that logic to rock & roll music in general, I'm guessing the conclusion might be that practically all bands suck because they're not as good as The Beatles.....and I don't know of ANY band or act that would disagree. Likewise, adding that critics have lionized Alex Chilton undeservedly, and Eric should have been getting similar adulation, makes no sense when evaluating Big Star's music. How were these two ever in competition? Big Star, to me, was a great anomaly in Alex's career. It was damn near the only music he ever made which the critics loved when it was released. (And I do agree that he got too much credit for "#1 Record", seeing as Chris Bell wrote and sang lead on half of the album.) It was also, far and away, the most melodic material he ever wrote or sang. Why weren't they successful? As in the case of Raspberries being promoted in an abysmal manner by Capitol, Big Star was screwed by their label Ardent, a subsidiary of Stax, which was used to promoting Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Booker T & The MGs, etc. I remember having trouble even finding their first 2 LPs in record stores back then. Chilton certainly wasn't a critics' darling as a teenager in The Box Tops - too commercial for the critics in the 60s. And most of his post-Big Star solo career was also critically panned when it came out - too trashy sounding, lo-fi quality. I remember reading horrid reviews of "Like Flies On Sherbert", "High Priest" and his live in NYC album when they were released. And critics everywhere trashed Big Star's 3rd album, "Sister Lovers" when it was released....as it was nothing like the poppier first two. What eventually won over the critics for Alex, IMO resulting in revisionism to a large extent, was the fact that he never stopped making music, and the fact that bands like REM and The Replacements kept telling interviewers that he was important to them. He also produced a number of acts over the years, ranging from Panther Burns to The Cramps (a huge critics' darling) and The Gories (ditto) - and make no mistake - this was trashy, garage music, just like most of Alex's solo efforts. Again, NOT in competition with Eric or his music. And regarding Alex's "bad boy" image.....Hell, he was stone cold sober, alcohol and drug-free for at least the last decade of his life, if not longer.

Hmmm......It appears not everybody hates Big Star or Alex Chilton here......seeing as Eric included a quote from Alex in the booklet for the just-released Essential Eric Carmen! The quote - "I remember when I first heard the Raspberries. Big Star were in a van traveling around doing some dates and we heard "Go All The Way" on the radio, and we said, "Wow, those guys are really doing it!" I thought that was a great song." Yet here, it's cartoons cussing out Big Star??? P.S. Also just wondering where John M Borack (who posted here for years as Popdude) fits in. In his book "Shake Some Action," he names "Starting Over" as the greatest power pop album in history........and the double disk set "# 1 Record / Radio City" by, you guessed it, Big Star, as the second greatest on his list of the 200 best power pop albums. Perhaps he's a genius for his first pick, but an idiot for his second? Signed - huge Raspberries/Eric Carmen AND BIg Star/Alex Chilton fan. And Eric - great, great job on the new collection!!!! You are correct - significant improvement in sound on so much of the solo material......like night and day!!!

It's fairly obvious that ISE's version was inspired by the live Sunset Strip version.......which was the first one to use a second lead singer on the bridge (Jennifer), trading lines with Eric (unlike in the original version). Other covers of IDKWIW (The Devil Dogs', for example) didn't do this.

Meant to type "ISE", not "ICE" above....

FWIW, Imperial State Electric's cover of IDKWIW was discussed here about 3 years ago........here's a cut & pasted post I made from early '11, referring to a Dec. 2010 earlier post.........I'm the one who got the live Sunset Strip Berries DVD into the hands of Nicke of ICE......... "BlondeVelvet/Bernie - I made the following post, along with the narrative below, about this cover, last Dec. 22. I suspect this band may have covered this tune after their front man Nicke spent many hours watching the live DVD from Sunset Strip.................. "One of the copies of the live Raspberries box set I bought a few years back went to an old friend of mine who was living in Stockholm at the time. One of his roommates then was Nicke Andersson, front man of The Hellacopters, and a member of many other bands (including The Solution with ex-Rationals/ex-Sonics Rendezvous Band singer Scott Morgan, Entombed, Cold Ethyl, Supershit 666, etc.). Per my friend Dave, Nicke spent a lot of time watching the live Raspberries LA HOB show over and over. I know he's a huge fan. I just found this youtube video/cover of "I Don't Know What I Want," performed at the Debaser in Stockholm last month, by Nicke and his latest band, Imperial State Electric, whose debut CD came out in June. (Nicke's the left hander in the hat, BTW)"

At the risk of nitpicking.........in that last post above, how did the names of Wilson, Caston & Poore wind up getting the songwriting credit at the bottom??? They're the guys who wrote The Temptations' song titled "Keep on Truckin"........and the lyrics to that song are completely different!

Oh, and by the way.......Hot Tuna did NOT claim writing credit for "Keep On Truckin". They credit it to old 20s/30s piano player Bob Carleton. Google "Burgers" and look it up, please........

Cayennegirl - Yes, and my contention is that they stole/borrowed most, if not all, of their lyrics.....please read below.....from The Hangar website......... "For the origin of the lyrics to the Tuna staple, one would have to dig deep into the blues bag for a handful of songs that were passed around during the 1920s and '30s. A good place to start would be guitarist Tampa Red's "What Is It That Tastes Like Gravy?," an 8-bar blues with a melody remarkably similar to "Ja-Da" and filled with double-entendre lyrics that center on a woman's aroma and taste during sexual stimulation and the act of cunnilingus. From there, fast-forward to 1936 and a blues guitarist named Blind Boy Fuller, a contemporary of [Jorma's main influence] Rev. Gary Davis. Fuller made a series of recordings for the American Record Corporation (ARC), among them one that he called "Truckin' My Blues Away," whose chorus is identical to the Hot Tuna track. A couple of years later, Fuller returned to the same melody for another risque blues called "What's That Smell Like Fish." Jorma, who began singing a version of "Keep On Truckin'" as early as college, borrowed Carleton's original melody as coopted by Tampa Red and Blind Boy Fuller, the chorus of "Truckin' My Blues Away," and the key phrase and a handful of other lines from "What's That Smell Like Fish" to construct his own classic. But where Blind Boy Fuller suggested in his song that the answer to the question he posed could very well be "sardines but it ain't in no can," Jorma left the particular kind of fish out of his interpretation and answered instead with the name of his group."

Two really quick points of info.......(1) Hot Tuna most certainly did NOT write "Keep On Truckin". It's a very old blues tune dating back to the 30s, via Blind Boy Fuller and Tampa Red. I doubt that Jorma and Jack claimed that they wrote it, but stranger things have happened regarding songwriting credits. (2) The screechy violinist with Hot Tuna was Papa John Creach, who recorded maybe 3-4 albums with Jorma, Jack and Joey Covington, as well as playing with Jefferson Starship later.

Julia - On behalf of, I suspect, a large number of people on this board, thank you!

The milk 'stache is a huge improvement over the real one that Salma grew for playing Frida Kahlo in "Frida" in '02. She decided that a fake one wouldn't look quite right, so she deliberately started shaving her upper lip to allow a real moustache to grow in. Rumor has it she now has to wax that lip regularly. Method acting.....

Thanks for the birthday wishes!!! Dianed - Thanks for remembering!!! XOXOX

Ira - According to the Republicans, Dagwood is a public servant of some sort....who cannot be fired, in spite of being incompetent, fraudulent, wasteful, abusive, etc. (Hence, he keeps his job....but don't worry, he'll get no pay raises for the next 75 years!) (On the other hand, it's also possible that he's not a public servant, but Blondie's doing Dithers on the side, unbeknownst to Dagwood!)